[Mb-civic] CBC News - SYRIA FREES CANADIAN

Sat May 7 16:20:52 PDT 2005

This email has been sent to you by harry.sifton at sympatico.ca
The following is a news item posted on CBC NEWS ONLINE
at http://www.cbc.ca/news
____________________________________________________
SYRIA FREES CANADIAN
WebPosted Sat May  7 14:47:14 2005

Ottawa---The Canadian government on Saturday hailed as a diplomatic coup
the release from a Syrian prison of a Canadian man.

Maher Ahmed Zaydan, who is now said to be reunited with his family, had
been in custody since arriving in Damascus on April 21.

                        FROM OCT. 28, 2004: Syria
                      holding British Columbian man

It remains unclear why he and his family went to Syria or why he was
arrested. But a parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Foreign
Affairs Pierre Pettigrew said Canadian diplomacy had helped win
Zaydan's release.

"It's another example of how diplomacy is working," Dan McTeague told
CBC Television. He added the government was relieved a Canadian had
been freed.

However, he could not say why Zaydan had been released or why the
Canadian of Syrian origin had been arrested in the first place. McTeague
said the government knew "very little" about the events.

"It'd be up to Mr. Zaydan to elaborate," he said.

Zaydan, who lived in Surrey, B.C., and is a dual Canadian-Syrian
national, had returned to Syria to care for his ailing father, The
Vancouver Sun reported Friday.

A human rights group based in London reportedly said Zaydan was a
political exile who might have been lured back to Syria with the promise
that it would be safe.

The paper reported that Zaydan had sold his Surrey home in March in order
to go to Syria.

Zaydan's case is reminiscent of the affair involving his namesake,
Maher Arar. Another Syrian-Canadian, Arar claims Canadian security
services suspecting him of extremist leanings conspired to have him
deported to Syria.

There, he claims he was tortured by Syrian police while being imprisoned
for 10 months in 2002.

The Arar case is being examined by in a public inquiry.