RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli apologized to Maher Arar on Thursday and said he accepts all the recommendations of a report criticizing the RCMP's role in the Canadian's deportation to Syria, where he was tortured.

"Mr. Arar, I wish to take this opportunity to express publicly to you and to your wife and to your children how truly sorry I am for whatever part the actions of the RCMP may have contributed to the terrible injustices that you experienced and the pain that you and your family endured," Zaccardelli said.

RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli told the Commons Public Safety committee that he accepts the report from the Arar inquiry.
(Tom Hanson/ Canadian Press)

The RCMP commissioner made the statement at the House of Commons committee on public safety and national security, which is looking at Justice Dennis O'Connor's report on the Arar case.

"I accept the recommendations of the report without exception," Zaccardelli told the committee.

This is his first public statement about the report, which was released on Sept. 18. While there have been accusations that Zaccardelli was being muzzled by the government, he dismissed those suggestions.

"Absolutely not," he said, adding that he believed the committee was the appropriate forum to comment on report, which blasted the RCMP for passing along inaccurate and misleading information to the U.S. about Arar. O'Connor said that information "very likely" led to the engineer's arrest and deportation.

Zaccardelli won't resign

While some critics have said Zaccardelli should lose his job over the RCMP's handling of the case, he said he will not offer his resignation.

While admitting the RCMP committed errors, Zaccardelli said it happened during the confusing and challenging days in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"Of course, this doesn't excuse or allow us to avoid facing head-on the ramifications of that time. But the fact is, we were in a very different world on Sept. 12."

O'Connor found the RCMP had unfairly identified Arar and his wife to U.S. authorities as "Islamic extremists" with links to al-Qaeda. 

Zaccardelli recounted his personal history with the case, saying that in 2002, he had some knowledge of the investigation into Arar and that he knew he was considered a person of interest.

But he said he didn't become involved until after Arar was already in jail in Syria. Zaccardelli said he learned that RCMP investigators had been trying to correct the false information that had been given to the Americans.

When asked whether he should have known earlier about Arar's case, Zaccardelli said the Mounties conducted thousands of national security investigations following the Sept. 11 attacks, and he couldn't have followed them all.

The agency has learned "valuable lessons" since Arar's ordeal and "some of them we learned painfully," the commissioner added.

He told the committee the RCMP has already set about reforming the way it conducts its operations.

Arar, an engineer who was born in Syria, was travelling back to his home in Ottawa from a family vacation in Tunisia in September 2002 when he was detained during a stopover in New York City. Within days, he was sent to Syria, where he says government officials held him, tortured him and kept him in jail for 10 months. U.S. authorities had accused Arar of having terrorist links.

Inquiry cleared Arar

O'Connor, who chaired a public inquiry into the case, cleared Arar of any wrongdoing and said he was falsely accused.

He was very critical of the RCMP on several fronts, concluding:

• Senior officers should have monitored less experienced officers more closely.
• The force should have supported efforts by the Department of Foreign Affairs to secure Arar's release from Syria.
• The RCMP failed to provide accurate information to the federal government about its national security investigation into Arar.

O'Connor found the RCMP had unfairly identified Arar and his wife Monia Mazigh to U.S. officials.

O'Connor's report also slammed Canadian officials for leaking "confidential and sometimes inaccurate information about the case to the media for the purpose of damaging Mr. Arar's reputation or protecting their self-interests or government's interests."

But Zaccardelli insisted to the committee that he did not know the source of the leaks and that they only came to his attention when Arar's family raised concerns.

"It is deplorable what happened. We deplore it," he said, adding that the source of the leak continues to be an ongoing investigation by his agency.

Later at a news conference, Zaccardelli said no one on the force has been disciplined over the Arar affair. He pointed out that O'Connor said none of the mistakes were done out of malice or intent to hurt anyone.

He said the errors have been reviewed and those responsible have undergone training to avoid repeating their mistakes.