Abdelrazik has his ticket!

G&M : "More than 100 supporters of a Canadian citizen stranded in Sudan have flouted Canadian law by purchasing an airline ticket home for the one-time terrorism suspect.
The activists, including former solicitor general Warren Allmand, bought the ticket for travel April 3 and put it in the hands of Abousfian Abdelrazik. It's now up to the government to issue Mr. Abdelrazik travel documents, said his lawyer, Yavar Hameed."

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With thanks to commenter Sumeet Jain of the British Association of South Asian Studies who set up the facebook account to facilitate this and to everyone who responded.

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The ball is now in the Canadian government's court.

The RCMP have said there is no information linking him to criminal activities.

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Here the Montreal Gazette describes our government's vile and Kafka-esque machinations after Sudanese investigators cleared Abdelrazik. Canadian security operatives had originally requested to have Sudan - a country with a notorious record of torture and abuse in its prisons - arrest and detain him in our very own Canadian version of rendition :

"Our former Liberal government, and now the Conservative one, have persisted in treating this citizen this way. Look at the absurd Catch-22 he's in now, housed in our Khartoum embassy: For no stated reason, Ottawa refused to issue him a passport, so he can't come home. For some time Ottawa said he could be given a temporary passport - after he booked a flight home. He booked one; they withdrew the offer. Now Ottawa insists he have a fully-paid ticket, but he has no money, and anyone who helps him financially will be charged under anti-terror laws, Ottawa says.

Frankly, we would rather have a dangerous terrorist walking around than accept the idea that Ottawa can condemn a citizen to this sort of quasi-legal hell.

If they can do this to him, they can do it to you."

Exactly.

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So how's the Con's bid to revive Canada's draconian Anti-Terror Act powers coming along?

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Last Thursday, Paul Kennedy, chair of the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP, told a Commons committee he's powerless to tell whether the Mounties have made the changes needed to prevent another Maher Arar affair.
The RCMP watchdog says he can provide no assurances the government has enacted the Arar inquiry's recommendations.

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