Maher Arar, the Canadian man who was unjustly deported to Syria, holds a news conference Friday. (CP PHOTO/Fred Chartrand)

OTTAWA (CP) - The Mounties provided information on Maher Arar to American authorities but were left in the dark when the U.S. deported the Canadian citizen to Syria, newly released documents show.

More than 1,000 pages, most of them blacked out for national security reasons, were released Friday by the commission of inquiry into the Arar case. Arar was detained in September 2002 in New York as an alleged member of the al-Qaida terrorist network. He was deported to Syria, even though he holds a Canadian passport.

Arar, 35, says Syrian officials tortured him in a grim cell before he was set free several months later. He denies any involvement in terrorism.

The documents are so vague they mislead rather than illuminate, Arar said Friday.

"The government is being very selective in terms of disclosure of those documents," he told a news conference.

One document, marked "secret," describes how the RCMP believed in October, 2002, that Arar was to be sent to Canada, only to be told by a foreign affairs official that it was believed he would be deported to Syria.

"Upon hearing this, the (officer in charge) of the project and his lead investigators became concerned," part of the document reads before being blacked out.

At the time, Arar was caught up in police investigation dubbed Project A-OCanada - although the RCMP documents suggest he was "peripheral" and a "secondary" figure.

There were discussions about sending investigators to New York to interview Arar. Investigators sought clarification from U.S. authorities about why Arar was arrested, and the Mounties also demanded to know whether Arar would be allowed to proceed to Canada.

No answers were given, according to a briefing note compiled for the RCMP commissioner.

In fact, it seems Canadian investigators were never told anything.

"Project A-OCanada investigators were never given access to Arar," the documents state.

"It is not clear why Arar was deported to Syria and not elsewhere. Project A-OCanada has not been informed of Arar's exact whereabouts or his custodial status in Syria."

Throughout the documents, the RCMP maintains it had "no role to play in Mr. Arar's initial detention and subsequent deportation from the United States."

However, investigators acknowledge passing "contextual information" about Arar to U.S. authorities at some point prior to his arrest in New York.

"Following Arar's arrest, authorities in (blank) asked for and received from Project A-OCanada a brief package of information on Maher Arar," said one document.

Canadian investigators even compiled a list of questions U.S. law enforcement officials could use to interrogate Arar.

After that, however, the Mounties washed their hands of the Ottawa engineer.

"Once the RCMP has provided information to its (foreign) partners, the resulting dissemination/actions concerning this information is beyond our control," said another briefing note.

Arar wants to see proof that authorities didn't circumvent Canadian law by sending him to a country where they knew he might be tortured.

"Canadians want to know if Canadian agencies are contracting out torture," he said.

"That is really the main question here."

In late Oct., 2002, Arar's lawyer, Michael Edelson, submitted a formal request to the Mounties for assistance in having him released from custody in Syria.

More than two weeks later, after the request was filtered through several bureaucratic layers within the RCMP, Edelson was turned down flat.

"The RCMP, as a matter of course, does not involve itself in subjects of foreign policies," wrote the officer in charge of the Mounties' Proceeds of Crime Section.

Of note, the letter did confirm that Arar remained the subject of an ongoing RCMP investigation, even though he had no criminal record in Canada was considered "peripheral" to the probe.

Arar's co-counsel says the documents appear to show that investigators repeatedly provided inaccurate and misleading information to the RCMP commissioner and to the Solicitor General.

One document said Arar refused to be interviewed by officers several months before his deportation and imprisonment in Syria. However, another paper showed Arar had agreed to questioning with his lawyer present.

"Senior officials and ministers use the information provided in these memos to make public statements and important decisions," said Lorne Waldman.

"There can be dire consequences if they are mislead."