Home > Maher Arar: Timeline
Prison Attack-Terrorism USA Canada-Québec
Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen born in Syria in 1970, came to Canada in 1987. After earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer engineering, Arar worked in Ottawa as a telecommunications engineer.
On a stopover in New York as he was returning to Canada from a vacation in Tunisia in September 2002, U.S. officials detained Arar, claiming he has links to al-Qaeda, and deported him to Syria, even though he was carrying a Canadian passport.
When Arar returned to Canada more than a year later, he said he had been tortured during his incarceration and accused American officials of sending him to Syria knowing that they practise torture.
His wife Monia Mazigh has a PhD in financial economics and ran for the NDP in the 2004 federal election in the riding of Ottawa South. She lost. Arar and Mazigh have two young children.