Al-QAIDA: Was he or wasn't he.

20 Jan 2009
National Post
BY STEVEN EDWARDS


KHADR LINKED AL-QAEDA, ARAR: FBI


2002 INTERROGATION Said he saw the Canadian in safe house

U. S . NAVAL BASE GUANTANAMO, CUBA • Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr identified Ottawa resident Maher Arar as someone he recognized from an al-Qaedarun “safe” house in Afghanistan, an FBI agent testified in a Guantanamo Bay military commission yesterday.

Robert Fuller, who interrogated the Canadian-born terror suspect in October, 2002, said Mr. Khadr made the identification from a black-and-white photo of Mr. Arar provided by FBI in Massachusetts — a state where Mr. Arar once lived.

The picture had been among a number featuring terrorism suspects, and Mr. Khadr, then 15, named Mr. Arar, but added he had never seen him in Canada, Mr. Fuller said.

Mr. Khadr said he saw Mr. Arar “several” times in alQaeda safe houses, and said he “may have” seen him at a terror training camp near Kabul, the Afghan capital, the FBI agent recounted.
“He identified him by name,” Mr. Fuller said.

A Canadian inquiry cleared Syrian-born Mr. Arar of having any terrorism links, and awarded him $10.5-million in compensation after admitting Canada had been wrong to provide information that led U.S. authorities to deport him as a terror suspect to Syria in 2002.






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