Canadian JournalistAugust 25, 2008 18:35 EST

I read the O'Connor report and found no definitive decision that Arar had not been tortured or was innocent, in fact none of those giving statements was under oath, according to the introduction of the inquiry report. Further, we still have the problem of whether or not Arar was in Afghanistan in mid 90's, why he won't talk about it and what he was doing. Unless a person has memory issues, one would assume he'd have something sensible to say about the subject.

I have no issue with criticizing sensationalist journalism or journalism which does not base itself on good information. However, Mitrovica does not convince me as a reader when he refers to leaks of official sources as "lies" in most every case. One suspects that Andrew Mitrovica already had his "winning horse" in this issue from the beginning and anything against his perception of the case was deemed as "lies". I thought this was supposed to be investigative journalism.

While this journalist seems to have his "conspiracy theories" about the handling of the issue to Arar's detriment, I know many more journalists who were just as dissatisfied with the quality and facts of the coverage to Arar's benefit. And the so-called O'Connor report leaves much room for speculation. Trust this reader that we have not heard the last about the questions left open by the O'Connor Report.