Former RCMP commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli said the United States effectively "threw away the rule book" in dealing with Canadian authorities on the Maher Arar affair. In an interview with the CBC broadcast Tuesday night, Zaccardelli blamed a post 9-11 hardline attitude in the United States for the Ottawa software engineer's detention and subsequent deportation to his native Syria. After Arar was detained in New York in the fall of 2002, Zaccardelli told the CBC that American authorities indicated to Canadian officials that they didn't have enough evidence to lay charges and asked whether he would be detained upon returning to Canada. "The discussion centres around: 'If we let him go and he comes to Canada, can you arrest him or detain him?' And we keep reaffirming, 'No we can't'," Zaccardelli said in the CBC interview, conducted in Lyons, France, where he is a senior official with Interpol. The Americans then led Canadian officials to believe Arar was going to be released and sent back to Canada, prompting the RCMP to put together a surveillance team to watch him. "We are waiting in Montreal for the plane to arrive with Mr. Arar getting off the plane. The plane arrives. Mr. Arar never got off," he said. Arar spent about a year in Syrian custody where he said he was tortured.