Canada on Thursday urged the United States to remove Maher Arar, a Syria-born Canadian software engineer wrongly labelled as a terror suspect, from the U.S. no-fly list.
The request from Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day came after U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice admitted Wednesday that Washington had mishandled the case.
"Today I have written a letter to my counterpart in the United States... asking, in light of what the secretary of state said, for them to reconsider their designation of Mr. Arar and remove him from those look-out lists," Day told the parliament.
Arar was arrested during a stopover in New York in 2002 and deported to Syria on information provided by Canadian police. He was imprisoned in Syria for a year and reportedly tortured.
The Canadian government apologized to him and offered some compensation after an inquiry cleared him of any terror links. Last week, some U.S. lawmakers apologized to him and urged the Bush administration to follow suit.
Rice said on Wednesday that Washington had not handled the incident well but stopped short of an apology. She also suggested Arar would remain on U.S. security watch lists.
Source: Xinhua
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