RCMP chief to resign over Arar testimony

CTV.ca News Staff

RCMP Commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli has resigned his position, Prime Minister Stephen Harper told the House of Commons.

Robert Fife, CTV News' Ottawa bureau chief, told CTV Newsnet on Wednesday that rumours were flying that Zaccardelli would be leaving.

It's clear Zaccardelli has lost the confidence of all political leaders in the House of Commons, he said.

On Tuesday, Zaccardelli told Parliament's public safety committee that what he had told them in late September about the Maher Arar case was wrong.

In late September, Zaccardelli told the committee that he found out in 2002 that the RCMP had branded Arar an Islamic extremist.

They passed that information on to the U.S. authorities, who used it to deport Arar to his native Syria. Authorities there interrogated and tortured Arar.

Now Zaccardelli said he couldn't have known that in 2002. He claims he only found out two months ago, when the report of an inquiry into the scandal got released.

"I did not learn about the mislabelling or the mistakes until after the conclusion of Justice O'Connor's report. Therefore I could not have known that when he was detained in the U.S. or when he was detained in Syria."

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