PM promises to probe RCMP chief's flip-flop

The commissioner acknowledged he gave a conflicting timeline in his testimony to the committee about what the RCMP knew about the case and when, and he said he regrets making those mistakes, but he was in a rush to give testimony in September.

"I was very anxious to deal with the matter," he said.

Later, he said, he realized his testimony "was not as precise and as accurate as it could have been and I had made a mistake. I recognized that I made a mistake in …leaving an impression that I knew information about those mistakes in 2002 when, in fact, I couldn't have known.

"I knew it in 2006."

Zaccardelli told the committee that his mistake should not lead to his resignation. He said withholding information or misrepresenting facts is a "cardinal sin."

Zaccardelli, looking flushed at one point, said he has suffered in the last few weeks for having provided inaccurate testimony and has been under intense media scrutiny.

"I tried to give as best an explanation as I could. I clearly made a mistake. The consequences have been severe for me. I am the only one who suffered as a result of that."

Explaining the contradictions

On Tuesday, to explain the contradictions, Zaccardelli gave a detailed account of events, saying Arar had been legitimately identified as a person of interest by the RCMP in the months following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City.

For the first time, Zaccardelli said, the RCMP told U.S. authorities that it did not have any evidence against Arar that would link him to the militant group al-Qaeda. The RCMP told the Americans that it could not detain him or charge him with a criminal offence, or prevent him from returning to Canada.

"Mr. Arar was neither innocent or guilty to us. He was a person of interest," he said.

"RCMP investigators clearly informed U.S. officials that there was no evidence to support criminal charges against Mr. Arar in Canada, that he could not be prevented from entering Canada, and that we were unable to link him to al-Qaeda," Zaccardelli said, quoting from a letter he sent to the committee in November.

He said the letter was an attempt to correct the mistake in his earlier testimony: "This should have had the effect of correcting any inaccurate information that had been provided previously."

Arar went to the U.S. twice without incident after being identified as a person of interest and before he was detained. However, in spring 2002, the RCMP shared information with U.S. authorities in the form of three CDs, which Zaccardelli said included misinformation about Arar.

RCMP says no al-Qaeda link

Zaccardelli said after the sharing of information, the RCMP made it clear to the Americans, both in writing and verbally, that Arar could not be linked to al-Qaeda.

But Arar, who had gone to Tunisia with his family in July 2002, was detained on the way home in September 2002 and subsequently deported.

Zaccardelli said senior officers of the RCMP were not aware of the incorrect information given to the Americans about Arar in the CDs until the O'Connor report was released this fall. The report cleared Arar's name, laying much of the blame on the Mounties.

"No senior staff, including myself, were told of the inaccuracies in the information provided to the Americans," he said.

It was only when the report was released that the RCMP learned that Arar had been described as an Islamist extremist. Zaccardelli said at that point he realized the extent of what had gone wrong.

The commissioner said the RCMP "acted in good faith" throughout the time that Arar was identified as a person of interest, detained in the U.S., deported to Syria and tortured.

Zaccardelli said he did not know how much information the Americans had been given, and was only told the barest details about the case when Arar was in Syria.

Faces tough questions

Zaccardelli faced tough questioning from the all-party committee after his explanation.

The discrepancy in his testimony arose because in September, Zaccardelli told the committee that he first learned the RCMP had passed incorrect information about Arar on to U.S authorities shortly after Arar was deported to Syria in 2002.

Then on Monday during his speech, Zaccardelli said he first learned that the Mounties had passed wrong information about Arar to U.S authorities this fall.

Lorne Waldman, lawyer for Arar, said the testimony on Tuesday does not ring true. He said it is "shocking" that the commissioner has been caught in such a "blatant contradiction."

"Either version creates grave concern. If he knew, he remained silent and didn't do anything to protect an innocent man for over a year. If he didn't know, then this leads to a whole series of questions. Who is running the RCMP?

"How can it be that the most senior official in the RCMP didn't know what was happening in the most controversial file of his watch, a file that had international repercussions?"

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