How did a computer consultant and two men he says he barely knows all wind up in Syrian jail cells? What role did Canadian officials play? Can you judge a man by his heritage, by the company he keeps?

The Maher Arar controversy has raised many troubling questions, and on Monday a federal public inquiry led by Ontario's associate chief justice will begin to root out answers. Mr. Arar, whose tale of torture and injustice has given him a household name, concludes that he is a victim of racial profiling, and insists his case is not isolated.

Less than a year ago, he, Abdullah Almalki, another Ottawa computer specialist, and Toronto truck driver Ahmad Abou El-Maati were behind bars, accused of having links with al-Qaeda. All had been investigated in Canada before landing in Syrian and then, in Mr. El-Maati's case, in Egyptian cells. All protested their innocence and complained that they had been tortured. And all have since been released.

Now out to clear his name, Mr. Arar -- whose wife, Monia Mazigh, is running for the New Democratic Party in the federal election -- has launched multimillion-dollar lawsuits against Syria, Jordan, the United States and Canada. The experience, he says, has left him deeply skeptical.

"If the United States goes to war against China, are we going to target the Chinese community? This is guilt by association."

To help him make his case, Mr. Arar has, thanks to the taxpayer, a four-member legal team that will attempt to extract an explanation of just what happened from Canada's top police officers, spymasters and foreign-affairs officials.

Whether even a phalanx of lawyers can penetrate the veil of secrecy that surrounds national-security investigations remains very much an open question. Afraid of becoming a pariah in an increasingly integrated global intelligence community, the government has asked that much of the discussion take place in private.

So the commission led by Mr. Justice Dennis O'Connor has its work cut out. Judge O'Connor earned much praise for his investigation of the tainted-water scandal four years ago in Walkerton, Ont. But his latest assignment appears to be far more complex -- a foray into the realm of espionage, terror and countries apparently willing to bend the rule of law to show they are with, rather than against, a superpower bent on revenge.

Because the case is so complicated, the accompanying timeline showing what happened to Mr. Arar and his two "associates" may prove indispensable as the murky tale comes to light.

Maher Arar, 34

The wireless technology consultant from Ottawa has gained global fame as a wrongfully accused terrorism suspect. After being arrested in a U.S. airport, the Canadian citizen was deported to Syria and spent 10 months in jail there before returning to Canada and launching a campaign to clear his name.

Abdullah Almalki, 34

He is the same age as Mr. Arar, has the same birthplace and is also in the high-tech business. Security agents were curious about Mr. Almalki's acquaintances, his travels to Afghanistan and his exports of computer equipment to Pakistan. As a result, he spent two years in jail and still can't come home to Canada.

Ahmad Abou El-Maati, 39

Born in Kuwait to Syrian and Egyptian parents, he was a naturalized Canadian employed as a truck driver in Toronto when, in the months leading up to 9/11, he came to the attention of security agents. After the attacks, the scrutiny became so great that, fed up, he left for Syria and was jailed for almost two and a half years.

April: Mr. El-Maati complains to friends and family that CSIS is asking questions and trying to recruit him as an informant.

Mid-August: He is quizzed at the U.S. border for eight hours about a map in his truck showing schematics of government buildings in Ottawa.

Sept. 11: After the attacks, he is visited again by CSIS when his name and that of his brother Amer appear on international terrorism watch lists.

Nov. 11: He flies to Syria after telling friends and co-workers he is joining his new bride. He is arrested upon arrival.

Dec. 3: Rocco Galati, his Canadian lawyer, gives the RCMP the mysterious map to show his client has nothing to hide. Later, Mr. El-Maati says the map soon winds up in the hands of his Syrian interrogators, who, he claims, force him to confess to plotting to bomb Parliament with his brother. He also is forced to name everyone he knows, including acquaintances Maher Arar and Abdullah Almalki.

January, 2002: He is transferred from Syrian custody to Egypt, where he is questioned about the whereabouts of his brother.

November: A year after his Canadian citizenship papers are found in an al-Qaeda safe house in Afghanistan, Amer is identified by the FBI as an "armed and dangerous" fugitive.

July, 2003: In an apparent reference to Mr. El-Maati, Seymour Hersh writes in The New Yorker that Syria "helped the United States avert a suspected bomb plot against an American target in Ottawa."

Nov. 6: Amnesty International urges Canada to do more to safeguard Mr. El-Maati's rights.

January, 2004: After three orders by their own supreme court, Egyptian authorities release Mr. El-Maati, two years after his transfer from Syria.

March 29: The paperwork is finally complete and he returns to Canada.

April 16: He swears an affidavit about what happened to him in a bid to obtain official standing at the Arar inquiry. His application is denied.

May 26: The FBI says its intelligence suggests that brother Amer wants to hijack a plane for a reprise of the 9/11 attacks. An imam in Toronto, however, says Amer probably died long ago in Chechnya.

Dec. 20, 2001: Mr. Arar complains that Canadian border agents seized his computer and snooped through its contents while he was returning from a trip to the United States.

2002

Jan. 21, 2002: RCMP officers execute seven search warrants across Ontario, seizing items from the homes of Abdullah Almalki, an acquaintance of Mr. Arar who was visiting Malaysia, and Ahmad Abou El-Maati, who is in a Syrian jail. They also knock on Mr. Arar's door, but he is in Tunisia, his wife's homeland.

June: After twice travelling to the United States with no apparent problems, Mr. Arar returns to Tunisia for an extended visit.

Sept. 26: En route home to Canada from Tunisia, he is arrested at JFK Airport in New York, accused of having terrorist links and shown his 1997 Ottawa rental agreement, witnessed by Abdullah Almalki, the brother of one of Mr. Arar's colleagues.

Oct. 3: During a visit by Canadian consular officials, he says he fears the United States plans to deport him to Syria.

Oct. 7: A U.S. immigration official formally tells Mr. Arar that he is considered a terrorist and al-Qaeda member. Why? Because he knows Ahmad Abou El-Maati and Abdullah Almalki.

Oct. 9: U.S. officials fly Mr. Arar to Jordan and several days later hand him over to Syria, where, he says later, he is immediately beaten with electric cables.

Oct. 11 to 16: Subsequent beatings, he says, prompt him to confess to having been trained as a terrorist in Afghanistan. After that, the intensity of the beatings subsides.

Early November: He signs and applies his thumbprint to a document containing the confession he will later recant.

Early April, 2003: He is allowed to see sunlight for the first time in six months.

April 23: Paul Cellucci, then U.S. ambassador to Canada, tells a private audience that "Mr. Arar is very well known to Canadian law enforcement. They understand our handling of the case. They wouldn't be happy to see him come back to Canada."

Aug. 14: During a prison visit by a Canadian consular official, Mr. Arar breaks down and says he has been tortured.

Aug. 19: Again, he says, he is coerced into writing that he trained in Afghanistan.

Sept. 19: Sees that Abdullah Almalki is also in the Syrian prison and appears to have been tortured even more severely.

Oct. 5: Released from prison, he leaves Syria for Canada.

Nov. 1: U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell tells Foreign Minister Bill Graham that the RCMP and CSIS alerted U.S. agencies to Mr. Arar's possible links to terrorism.

Nov. 4: Mr. Arar appears on national TV to say that "I am not a terrorist. I am not a member of al-Qaeda and I do not know anyone who belongs to this group."

Nov. 8: Contents of the Canadian government's secret dossier on Mr. Arar appear in the Ottawa Citizen, alleging that he trained in Afghanistan and may have been part of an al-Qaeda cell.

Jan. 12, 2004: Despite a growing outcry over Mr. Arar's treatment, the U.S. Justice Department sticks to its guns, stating "we have information indicating that Mr. Arar is a member of al-Qaeda and, therefore, remains a threat to U.S. national security."Jan. 21: Searching for the leaked Arar files, the Mounties raid the home of Citizen reporter Juliet O'Neill, creating a media uproar.

Jan. 28: Under fire, the government announces a public inquiry into the circumstances of Mr. Arar's detention.

March 10: Mr. Arar's wife, Monia Mazigh, announces she will seek the New Democratic Party's nomination in Ottawa South in the June 28 federal election.

Sept. 11 terrorist attacks

Sept. 11, 2001: Not long after the attacks, Canadian security agents question Mr. Almalki at his home in Ottawa.

October: Police observe him having lunch with Maher Arar at a restaurant. Soon he travels to Malaysia, his wife's homeland, as global intelligence agencies track his movements.

Jan. 21, 2002: During their sweep across Ontario, RCMP agents question Mr. Almalki's friends and relatives about his computer business.

April: Mr. Almalki leaves Malaysia to visit family in Syria, where he is arrested upon arrival.

Sept. 19, 2003: Mr. Almalki sees Mr. Arar in the Syrian prison for the first time, and complains of being beaten with tires and two-inch-thick cables, and of being hung upside down. "He was very, very thin and pale," Mr. Arar later recalls. "He was very weak."

March, 2004: Almost two years after his arrest, Mr. Almalki is finally released from prison. Unlike his two acquaintances, however, he has yet to come home. He has been charged with acting contrary to the interests of Syria and must remain there until the case is decided.