[JURIST] Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper [official website] told US President George W. Bush in a telephone conversation Friday that Canada was filing an official protest regarding the US treatment of Maher Arar [JURIST news archive], a Canadian citizen detained by US authorities on a 2002 stopover at JFK airport in New York and sent to Syria, where he was imprisoned and tortured. The letter of protest was transmitted from Canadian Foreign Minister Peter MacKay [official profile] to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. CBC News has more.

The formal complaint follows the September 18 release of the Arar Commission Report [text, PDF], the Canadian judicial inquiry which found that although the US decision to deport Arar was "very likely" based on inaccurate, unfair and overstated information [JURIST report] about him passed on by the RCMP [official website], Canada's federal police force, US officials treated him badly and were not candid with the RCMP or with Canadian consular staff who were trying to get information about his situation.