Federal Court orders Ottawa to bring Abdelrazik home

Federal Court Judge Russell Zinn found that Abdelrazik is "as much a victim of international terrorism as the innocent persons whose lives have been taken by recent barbaric acts of terrorists" and has ordered the government to facilitate Abdelrazik's return within 30 days.
He also found CSIS "complicit" in Abdelrazik's detention by Sudanese authorities six years ago.

Some quotes from Justice Zinn's decision in Federal Court June 4, 2009

ABOUSFIAN ABDELRAZIK v THE MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS
and THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF CANADA

"Mr. Abdelrazik lives in the Canadian Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan, his country of citizenship by birth, fearing possible detention and torture should he leave this sanctuary, all the while wanting but being unable to return to Canada, his country of citizenship by choice. He lives by himself with strangers while his immediate family, his young children, are in Montreal.
He is as much a victim of international terrorism as the innocent persons whose lives have been taken by recent barbaric acts of terrorists.

I find that Mr. Abdelrazik’s Charter right to enter Canada has been breached by the respondents.

I find that Mr. Abdelrazik is entitled to an appropriate remedy which, in the unique circumstances of his situation, requires that the Canadian government take immediate action so that Mr. Abdelrazik is returned to Canada.
Furthermore, as a consequence of the facts found establishing the breach and the unique circumstances of Mr. Abdelrazik’s circumstances, the remedy requires that this Court retain jurisdiction to ensure that Mr. Abdelrazik is returned to Canada.

One cannot prove that fairies and goblins do not exist any more than Mr. Abdelrazik or any other person can prove that they are not an Al-Qaida associate. It is a fundamental principle of Canadian and international justice that the accused does not have the burden of proving his innocence, the accuser has the burden of proving guilt. In light of these shortcomings, it is disingenuous of the respondents to submit, as they did, that if he is wrongly listed the remedy is for Mr. Abdelrazik to apply to the 1267 [U.N.]Committee for de-listing and not to engage this Court. The 1267 Committee regime is, as I observed at the hearing, a situation for a listed person not unlike that of Josef K. in Kafka’s The Trial, who awakens one morning and, for reasons never revealed to him or the reader, is arrested and prosecuted for an unspecified crime..

Then following a review of correspondence between officials in DFAIT and consular officials in Khartoum :

I find, on the balance of probabilities, on the record before the Court, that CSIS was complicit in the initial detention of Mr. Abdelrazik by the Sudanese.
This finding is based on the record before the Court on this application. The role of CSIS may subsequently be shown to be otherwise if and when full and complete information is provided by that service as to its role.

CSIS has already denied this and asked for a review by SIRC, Security Intelligence Review Committee, the CSIS oversight body with which it has an alarmingly cosy relationship.

Justice Zinn also had a few choice words for DFAIT, with regards to this July 2004 DFAIT email in response to Abdelrazik's wife raising the possibility of chartering a private plane to return her husband to Montreal. Ms. Gaudet-Fee of Foreign Affairs :

"So, should she get a private plane, there is very little we could do to stop him from entering Canada. He would need an EP [i.e. Emergency Passport] and I guess this could be refused but on what ground.
So, stay tuned."

Justice Zinn :

I find the comment of the official of Foreign Affairs very troubling.
In my view, it is reasonable to conclude from the July 30, 2004 musings of the foreign Affairs official that Canadian authorities did not want Mr. Abdelrazik to return to Canada and they were prepared to examine avenues that would prevent his return, such as the denial of an emergency passport. That conclusion is further supported by the extraordinary circumstances in which the Minister made the decision on April 3, 2009 to refuse the applicant an emergency passport.

At no time however in the last five years did DFAIT admit to Abdelrazik that they had no intention of allowing him to return to Canada; in fact they repeatedly assured him that they would grant him an emergency passport.

The flight scheduled for April 3, 2009

[130] In March 2009, Mr. Abdelrazik managed to obtain and pay for a flight from Khartoum to Montreal with a stop over in Abu Dhabi. He had been repeatedly assured for years that an emergency passport would be provided in that eventuality. Notwithstanding the numerous assurances given by Canada over a period of almost 5 years, and repeated as recently as December 23, 2008, on April 3, 2009 just two hours before the flight was to leave, the Minister of Foreign Affairs [Lawrence Cannon] refused to issue that emergency passport on the basis that he was of the opinion, pursuant to Section 10.1 of the Canadian Passport Order, "that such action is necessary for the national security of Canada or another country."

I find that the only reason that Mr. Abdelrazik is not in Canada now is because of the actions of the Minister on April 3, 2009. ... the Minister waited until the very last minute before the flight was to depart to deny the emergency passport.

Had it been necessary to determine whether the breach was done in bad faith, I would have had no hesitation making that finding on the basis of the record before me.

[156] I have found that Canada has engaged in a course of conduct and specific acts that constitute a breach of Mr. Abdelrazik’s right to enter Canada. Specifically, I find:
(i) That CSIS was complicit in the detention of Mr. Abdelrazik by the Sudanese authorities in 2003;
(ii) That by mid 2004 Canadian authorities had determined that they would not take any active steps to assist Mr. Abdelrazik to return to Canada and, in spite of its numerous assurances to the contrary, would consider refusing him an emergency passport if that was required in order to ensure that he could not return to Canada;
(iii) That there is no impediment from the UN Resolution to Mr. Abdelrazik being repatriated to Canada – no permission of a foreign government is required to transit through its airspace – and the respondents’ assertion to the contrary is a part of the conduct engaged in to ensure that Mr. Abdelrazik could not return to Canada; and
(iv) That Canada’s denial of an emergency passport on April 3, 2009, after all of the preconditions for the issuance of an emergency passport previously set by Canada had been met, is a breach of his Charter right to enter Canada

[160] Accordingly, at a minimum, the respondents are to be ordered to provide Mr. Abdelrazik with an emergency passport that will permit him to travel to and enter Canada. There is any number of ways available to him to return to Canada. He once secured an airline ticket and may be able to do so again. In the Court’s view that would cure the breach and be the least intrusive on the role of the executive. If such travel is possible, and if funds or sufficient funds to pay for an air ticket are not available to the applicant from his April 3, 2009 unused ticket, then the respondents are to provide the airfare or additional airfare required because, but for the breach, he would not have to incur this expense.

In fulfilment of this judicial process, the applicant [Abdelrazik] is ordered to appear before me at 2:00 o’clock in the afternoon on Tuesday, July 7, 2009, at the Federal Court ...

“Russel W. Zinn”
Judge

Thank you, Justice Zinn.
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Abdelrazik is another Arar

Remember Abousfian Abdelrazik, the Canadian/Sudanese imprisoned and allegedly tortured in Sudan for two years at Canada's request?
Sudan found him innocent of terrorist charges in 2004 and offered to fly him back to Montreal but Canada declined so Abdelrazik is now living in the lobby of the Canadian embassy in Khartoum. Yeah that guy.

Canada feared U.S. backlash over man trapped in Sudan

Senior [Transport Canada] intelligence officials warned against allowing Abousfian Abdelrazik, a Canadian citizen, to return home from Sudan because it could upset the Bush administration, classified documents reveal.

"Senior government of Canada officials should be mindful of the potential reaction of our U.S. counterparts to Abdelrazik's return to Canada as he is on the U.S. no-fly list," intelligence officials say in documents in the possession of The Globe and Mail.

"Continued co-operation between Canada and the U.S. in the matters of security is essential. We will need to continue to work closely on issues related to the Security of North America, including the case of Mr. Abdelrazik," the document says.

The "Security of North America".

Drop Steve and Dave a line : pm@pm.gc.ca and Emerson.D@parl.gc.ca


Update : DFAIT response :

Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada
Ottawa, OntarioK1A 0G2
July 24, 2008

Dear XXXXXXX

On behalf of the Honourable David Emerson, Minister of Foreign Affairs, thank you for your correspondence of July 2, 2008 regarding Mr. Abousfian Abdelrazik in Sudan.

While the Privacy Act prevents me from sharing detailed information on this case, I can assure you that Canadian consular officials are providing Mr. Abdelrazik with assistance to ensure his health and well-being. We will continue to assist Mr. Abdelrazik until the matter has been resolved.

With respect to allegations that the Government of Canada was involved in Mr. Abdelrazik's arrest, I should clarify that this matter falls outside the purview of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. As such, you may wish to share your concerns with Public Safety Canada.

Again, thank you for writing.
Sincerely yours,
Sean Robertson,
Director, Case Management Division Consular Services and Emergency Management Branch


Mr Robertson is, according to CBC, "the senior foreign affairs official in charge of Abdelrazik's file".

In April Mr. Robertson "flatly denies Sudan ever offered a private aircraft to fly Mr. Abdelrazik back to Montreal. "I would like to confirm that no such offer was ever made to Department officials by the Sudanese government," the letter, signed by Sean Robertson, director of consular case management at Foreign Affairs, says.

In 2004, however, a Foreign Affairs official confirmed : "There is no unwillingness to allow him to come to Canada aboard a private plane which the Sudanese government is willing to provide," a senior Canadian foreign affairs official wrote then.

Another Arar

"The similarities with Mr. Arar's case are compelling. In both instances, a Canadian citizen is fingered by CSIS as a terrorist suspect. In both cases, no charges are laid in Canada. In both, the person is arrested and imprisoned abroad. In both, Canadian officials say there is little that they can do because the person is in the country of their other citizenship."

The above quote is from the Globe&Mail in their front page story in April about Abousfian Abdelrazik, a Canadian/Sudanese imprisoned and allegedly tortured in Sudan for two years at Canada's request. Frequently visited by CSIS officials, he was eventually cleared by Sudan of all allegations that he was a terrorist or a member of al-Qaeda and released. Sudan offered to fly him home to Montreal but Canada obstructed the deal.
Since then he has been "sheltering" and living on handouts at the Canadian embassy in Khartoum, except for that five months when he was reincarcerated after threatening to make his case to Prime Minister Martin on the PM's visit to Sudan. Canada has refused to renew his passport or to transport him back to Canada on any of the subsequent government flights between Canada and Sudan.

The G&M returned to Abdelrazik's plight today (bold:mine) :

"In a telephone interview Monday, Mr. Abdelrazik said he told a Canadian diplomat he was being repeatedly beaten by Sudanese interrogators in 2004 or 2005. "He didn't care," Mr. Abdelrazik said.
Mr. Abdelrazik, who was to submit a sworn affidavit about his torture in Sudan to Federal Court in Ottawa Monday, confirmed all of the details in the draft document, including that he was interrogated by CSIS agents while in a Sudanese jail. However, the document remained unsigned because Canadian diplomats refused to deliver the faxed draft to Mr. Abdelrazik to sign."

What?!

"Canadian government documents, which came to light in April, revealed he had been imprisoned in Sudan "at our request," meaning at the request of Canadian agents.
In its response, delivered Monday, the Justice Department opted not to dispute the assertion that Mr. Abdelrazik had been imprisoned at Canada's request, in effect conceding the fact before the court.

The documents presented in court, coupled with Mr. Abdelrazik's accounts of torture, suggest Canada secretly arranged for Sudan to arrest and imprison him, then sent Canadian Security Intelligence Service agents to interrogate him in a Sudanese prison while diplomats knew that he was being tortured but ignored that fact.

Canadian diplomats in Khartoum refused Monday, for the second day in a row, to permit Mr. Abdelrazik to sign the affidavit; his signature would have made it a sworn affidavit.

"The matter is under litigation and we cannot comment," said Anne Howland, spokeswoman for current Foreign Minister David Emerson. Other senior officials said the file is actually being handled in the Prime Minister's Office."

I'll just fucking bet it is. To read the anguished but impotent and self-serving hand-wringing by Foreign Affairs officials, go here:

"I wish I had a magic wand and make this case go away ... I find it unethical to hold him like this in limbo with no future, no hope and all because ... Obviously I cannot address the issue of the no-fly list ..."
"Mr. Abdelrazik "has reached the end of his rope, he has no money, no future, very little freedom and no hope. Should this case break wide open in the media, we may have a lot to explaining to do."

Well, it's broken open now so deal. Just send a fucking plane already.

If you can do it for Brenda Martin, you can do it for Abousfian Abdelrazik.


Bloggers, readers, start your engines.
Write a letter, make a call, send a fax to :

David Emerson, Foreign Affairs :
Telephone: (613) 943-0267 or Fax: (613) 943-0219
EMail: Emerson.D@parl.gc.ca
2148 KingswayVancouver, British Columbia
V5N 2T5Telephone: (604) 775-6263 or Fax: (604) 775-6284

Stephen Harper : E-mail : pm@pm.gc.ca or Fax: 613-941-6900

h/t to Roger in Comments at the Beav for the reminder to post this access info.
Bees, honey, vinegar, no crayon - you know the drill.

Abdelrazik sues Ottawa and Lawrence Cannon for $27-mil

After nearly six years of exile, prison and alleged torture in Sudan "at our request", Canadian Abousfian Abdelrazik is suing Ottawa for $24-mil and Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon personally for $3-mil.


Mr. Justice Russel Zinn of the Federal Court ordered the government to bring him home in June after years of cruel cat-and-mouse games with his constitutional rights under both Cons and Libs.

Zinn :"CSIS was complicit in the detention of Mr. Abdelrazik by the Sudanese authorities in 2003."

Despite having been cleared of any wrongdoing by CSIS, the RCMP, and Sudan, for five years Abdelrazik was repeatedly assured by DFAIT that they would grant him an emergency passport only to have them withdraw the offer again under various pretexts. They had no intention of delivering.

From the excellent Paul Koring :

"CSIS agents interrogated Mr. Abdelrazik in a Khartoum prison, offering him – according to Mr. Abdelrazik – freedom if he would help them and warning him if he didn't he would never return home to his family and Sudan would be his "Guantanamo Bay."

In his lawsuit, Mr. Abdelrazik's lawyer claims: “While in Kober prison, he was deprived of sleep, subjected to verbal assaults, pummelled, kicked and flogged with a rubber hose on his back.” At other times he was hanged by his wrists, he said.

"This does not amount to torture or mistreatment. It is the reality in Sudan and he would not have been targeted for mistreatment any more than other fellow detainees," senior Foreign Affairs official Odette Gaudet-Fee said.
Another suggested Mr. Abdelrazik mutilated himself.

It is presumed that CSIS' original interest in Abdelrazik came via Abu Zubaydah, the schizophrenic halfwit waterboarded 83 times in 2002 in order to elicit a false confession linking Sadaam and al-Qaeda that could be used to justify the US invasion of Iraq.
CSIS has said while it once might have received evidence derived from torture, it no longer does.
Lawrence Cannon really has this one coming.
In July, Abdelrazik asked the federal government to help him get his name removed from a United Nations terror watch list so he could lead a normal life - get a job, healthcare, a bank account. This can only be done with the help of your own government; Cannon suggested Abdelrazik get himself off it.

It seems the only way to get this bunch of crackerbox politicians to obey Canadian law is to take them to court and embarrass them with massive lawsuits.

Had enough of this yet, Canada?
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Canada denies passport to Abdelrazik

April 3, 2009
Department of Justice Canada
DFAIT Legal Services Unit

Dear Mr. Hameed:

Re: Mr. Abousfian Abdelrazik request for an emergency passport

Pursuant to Section 10.1 of the Canadian Passport Order the Minister of Foreign Affairs has decided to refuse your client's request for an emergency passport.

Sincerely,
Donna Blois,
Council


Previous DFAIT corespondence on Abdelrazik :

July 13, 2005
Odette Gaudet-Fee, senior Foreign Affairs official in Ottawa,
To David Hutchings, head of the Canadian embassy in Khartoum:

"I wish I had a magic wand and make this case go away ... I find it unethical to hold him like this in limbo with no future, no hope and all because ...

Obviously I cannot address the issue of the no-fly list "

May 2005
Odette Gaudet-Fee :

"[Mr. Abdelrazik] has reached the end of his rope, he has no money, no future, very little freedom and no hope. Should this case break wide open in the media, we may have a lot to explaining to do."

April 2008
Sean Robertson, Director of Consular Case Management
Foreign Affairs :

"Since October of 2003, the government of Canada has provided a high level of consular assistance and support to Mr. Abdelrazik"

April 30, 2008
Transport Canada :

"Transport Canada and other senior Government of Canada officials should be mindful of the potential reaction of our U.S. counterparts to Abdelrazik's return to Canada as he is on the U.S. No-Fly List and the Department of Treasury's Specially Designated Nationals and blocked Persons."

March 2008

"Deepak Obhrai, the junior foreign affairs minister, met Mr. Abdelrazik at the embassy.
Mr. Abdelrazik said they quizzed him about why he came to Canada in the first place and asked about his views on Israel."

Very good summation of Abdelrazik's plight on yesterday's The Current
.
Skdadl says if you send Abousfian Abdelrazik a message of support at projectflyhome@gmail.com , he'll definitely get it.

And while you're at it, send Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon a fucking cluebat :
Telephone: (613) 992-5516 ... Fax: (613) 992-6802
EMail: CannoL@parl.gc.ca .
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Canada, Sudan, and the stench of hypocrisy

Two headlines on Canada and Sudan, just hours apart

Canada urges Sudan to cooperate with the International Criminal Court
after the bench issued an arrest warrant for President Omar al-Beshir for war crimes in Darfur.

Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon :

"Canada strongly supports the work of the ICC, including its work in Sudan," he said, calling for "ongoing international scrutiny of Sudan's commitments to human rights."

Sure. Unless, of course, Canada is making use of Sudan's crappy human rights record to detain and torture a Canadian citizen, Abousfian Abdelrazik. Then we're not so keen on those "commitments to human rights".

CSIS asked Sudan to arrest Canadian, files reveal
Abdelrazik is 'first case of Canadian rendition,' MP says

"Canadian security operatives asked Sudan - a country with a notorious record of torture and abuse in its prisons - to arrest and detain Canadian citizen Abousfian Abdelrazik, according to heavily redacted Canadian documents, marked "secret."

The newly obtained documents provide the strongest evidence to date that Canadian Security Intelligence agents engaged in the Bush-era U.S. practice of getting other countries to imprison those it considered security risks aboard rather than charge them with any crime."

Abdelrazik fled to Canada in 1990 after being imprisoned in Sudan for his political beliefs following the coup by the same President Omar al-Beshir the ICC is after today. Abdelrazik was granted refugee status and in 1995 he became a Canadian citizen.
While he was visiting his ailing mother in Khartoum in 2003, Canada had him arrested and interrogated there. Despite his being declared innocent of terrorist ties and released from prison by Sudan, even despite Sudan's offer to fly him home to Canada, Canada refused to return or reissue his expired passport and his name subsequently went on the U.S. no-fly list.

On April 3, 2007, Foreign Affairs point man on the case, Sean Robertson, sent a cable to the Canadian embassy in Khartoum :

"Mission staff should not accompany Abdelrazik to his interview with the FBI."

A month later a Canadian embassy official in Khartoum told Ottawa that Mr. Abdelrazik had been told by the FBI that he would never see Canada again unless he implicated others as al-Qaeda operatives.

I do believe we've been here before.

Let Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon know you're watching - Cannon.L@parl.gc.ca. -and support Abdelrazik's return to Canada on Facebook.
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Previous Creekside posts on Abdelrazik. . . Dr. Dawg's superior coverage.
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Cons agree to bring Abdelrazik home

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson announced in Question Period today that the government will comply with, rather than appeal, the Federal Court decision ordering it to repatriate Abdelrazik,
stranded in Sudan since 2003.
Good.
As Chris Selley writes : "It's all over but the thousands of unanswered questions"
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Here's one.
How much did this July 2006 US Embassy memo figure in extending Abdelrazik's exile?

"US Embassy DCM John Dickson made a demarche this afternoon re Abdelrazik.
... He had been asked to deliver a message from the White House, specifically from senior levels of the Homeland Security Council. [US] Ambassador Wilkins might be calling Ministers Toves [sic] and Day tomorrow. Frances Townsend might also be calling.

Dickson's main message was that the US would like Canada's assistance in putting together a criminal case against Abdelrazik so that he could be charged in the US. The US had information on Abdelrazik but at this point, it was not enough to charge him; the same might be true for Canada. If Canadian police or security agencies shared what they had, it might prove to be enough for the US to proceed, as the threshold for prosecution there was lower than here."

Days later the US added Abdelrazik to the UN Security Council terrorist blacklist, despite not having sufficient evidence to charge him under their 'lower threshold'.

And just so we're clear here - the threshold for action was spectacularly lower.
Recall that Maher Arar was renditioned to Syria the day after a wounded 14 year old Omar Khadr in Bagram prison was shown photos of Arar and coached into saying that "he looked familiar", and the US evidence against Abdelrazik appears to be the unfortunate spinoff derived from waterboarding a schizophrenic halfwit 83 times in 2002 in order to elicit a false confession linking Sadaam and al-Qaeda that could be used to justify the US invasion of Iraq.

Here's a question :
We don't know what correspodence transpired after the memo above, written three years after Arar returned to Canada and during the time we were hearing advance notice of the O'Connor report which would clear him of all terrorism allegations two months later. Was Abdelrazik kept in exile at the Canadian Embassy in Sudan to avoid a similar debacle by someone who decided he was safer left there than he would be back in Canada?
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Everybody loves a SIRCus

In response to media reports that CSIS had been complicit in the detention of Canadian citizen Abousfian Abdelrazik in Sudan, outgoing CSIS director Jim Judd requested that CSIS watchdog and review panel, the Security Intelligence Review Committee, "investigate and report on the performance of the Service’s [CSIS's] duties and functions with respect to the case of Abousofian Abdelrazik at the earliest opportunity". That was in March 2009.

Three months later Federal Court Justice Russel Zinn ruled that CSIS was indeed "complicit in the detention" of Abdelrazik in Sudan. Then in September of this year, newly released CSIS documents revealed the spy agency's attempts to delay Abdelrazik's return to Canada long enough for the CIA to spirit him off to Guantanamo, even as Foreign Affairs diplomats were arranging for his return, making this the biggest known Canadian  intelligence agency scandal since Maher Arar.

So how's that full investigation by SIRC requested by Judd coming along then? 

Dead in the water apparently.

Steve promoted Dr. Arthur Porter, the SIRC committee member charged with leading the Abdelrazik investigation, to chair of the committee in June last year, and then accepted his resignation this month following a NaPo story regarding Dr Porter's offshore cash payment to a former Israeli arms trafficker - now acting as a lobbyist for the Russian Federation - to sell infrastructure deals to Sierra Leone where Porter has mining interests and holds the title of "His Excellency, Ambassador Plenipotentiary, Republic of Sierra Leone".

"I wish to state for the record that I have fulfilled with diligence my mandate," 

wrote Dr. Porter in his letter of resignation to Steve.


... which got me to wondering just what was so gosh-darned important in SIRC's mandate last year that it bumped the Abdelrazik investigation requested by CSIS right off the list.

From the Security Intelligence Review Committee 2010-2011 Annual Report
Checks and Balances : Viewing Security Intelligence Through the Lens of Accountability

The Lens of Accountability interested itself in five SIRC-initiated reviews and three public complaints.
The Reviews :

~ a pitch for "retooloing" SIRC to allow for "independent review" of Canada's other intelligence agencies as well as CSIS

~ "SIRC also followed through on its commitment to pay close attention to CSIS’s expanding foreign investigative activities. Although overseas operations unfold in unique circumstances and present different challenges, CSIS should strive to ensure that the management of its operations abroad mirrors, to the extent practicable, the standards of administration and account­ability that are maintained domestically."

~ "Today the Service is also reaching out to non-traditional partners, such as the private sector."

"In SIRC’s opinion, an effective strategy would involve identifying those sectors with the greatest potential to be of investigative value to the Service. ... the Service strives to engage and support the private sector’s security needs in other ways. Efforts are also underway to increase the number of security clearances for individuals in the private sector."

~ "an appreciation of the way in which the internet supports CSIS’s activities"
although it notes :

" At issue was the volume of information pertaining to young people being retained by CSIS as part of its operational reporting."

~ A positive review of CSIS’s cooperation "with a “Five Eyes” partner" - which could be either the US, UK, Australia, or NZ.

Note to SIRC : If you have to use evasive terminology like "a Five Eyes partner" in your "positive review" rather than actually name the country you are feeling positive about, it's not really much of a public account, is it?

~ "a positive impression of RCMP–CSIS cooperation"

"The relationship between CSIS and the RCMP, in particular, has moved to the forefront following the passage of the Anti-terrorism Act (2001). As a result of this legislation, CSIS and the RCMP have had to work more closely together"

~ "Canada is experiencing levels of espionage compa­rable to the height of the Cold War."

~ Afghan detainees.

" In particular, SIRC’s review found no indication that in the period during which CSIS conducted detainee interviews, CSIS officers posted to Afghanistan had any first-hand knowledge of the alleged abuse, mistreatment or torture of detainees by Afghan authorities."

however :

"SIRC noted that CSIS did not comprehen­sively document its role in the interviews of Afghan detainees by keeping records that would confirm the numbers and details of all of the detainee interviews"

SIRC also handles citizen complaints against CSIS. This year three were investigated and written up, which included the following complaints :
CSIS failing to identify itself as CSIS, harrassment of family members, suggesting to interviewee that a lawyer was not necessary, delay in providing security assessment for a site access, and allegedly providing an "unjust, unfounded, and unethical" assessment to Citizenship and Immigration Canada regarding  a complainant's application for permanent  resident status.

Aside from providing some gentle advice, like that in its reports to Citizenship and Immigration Canada "the Service not include certain information unless it has been corroborated", SIRC did not find anything unduly alarming in its public report of the three out of 48 new and carried-over complaints.


I'm sure the four out of five health industry experts that comprise SIRC's review panel on CSIS did the best they could with their unwieldy $3-million Lens of Accountability. Unfortunately that lens is looking the other way in the case Abousfian Abdelrazik, the largest CSIS intelligence scandal since Maher Arar.
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Update : SIRC reviewed CSIS re Abdelrazik for their 2012-2013 report, covering the period from March 2003 to December 2004. 
It found "no indication that CSIS had requested Sudanese authorities to arrest or detain Abousfian Abdelrazik" , but that "CSIS inappropriately and, in contravention of CSIS policy, disclosed personal and classified information." Further, "in mid-2004 in preparation for Mr. Abdelrazik’s possible release, SIRC found that CSIS assessments to its government partners contained exaggerated and inaccurately conveyed information" and that "CSIS excessively reported, and hence retained in its operational databases, a significant amount of information not related to the threat, originating from individuals who were not targets."
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The continuing trials of Abdelrazik as Josef K

The Canadian government's latest new reason for barring Abdelrazik's passage home :

"In a federal-court filing, the government says its hands are tied and that neither Mr. Abdelrazik's Charter right as a citizen to enter Canada nor the UN's specific travel-ban exemption permitting those on its terrorist blacklist to return home requires it let him fly back to his family in Montreal.

It says the UN travel ban "prohibits other states" from allowing Mr. Abdelrazik or anyone else on what's called the 1267 list of al-Qaeda suspects "to enter into and travel through their territories which includes land, airspace and territorial waters."

However :

"Only two days before Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon rescinded the government's written promise to issue Mr. Abdelrazik a travel document to fly home, another person on the 1267 blacklist flew from London to Nairobi after the British government received a routine exemption from the UN Security Council 1267 Committee.

Mr. Ciise's flight across Europe and Africa would have transited the airspace of as many as a dozen countries, depending on the weather and the routing. None of them was required to approve his travel plans.

The Harper government has never applied for a travel-ban exemption for Mr. Abdelrazik."

Four days ago CBC's The Current did a very good short history of Abdelrazik's plight, comparing his situation to that of Josef K in Kafka's The Trial. Listen to it here, starting at the two minute mark : Abdelrazik/Kafka Doc.

H/T POGGE
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UN : Canada free to bring Abdelrazik home

Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon in the House of Commons on Monday :

"Mr. Abdelrazik is on the list established by the United Nations Security Council as an individual with ties to al-Qaeda. Therefore, he is subject to a travel ban and an asset freeze. Our government is taking its obligations seriously and that is why we are not going to issue him a travel document to return home."

G&M : Richard Barrett, co-ordinator of the UN's Al-Qaeda and Taliban Monitoring Team, which oversees the various United Nations resolutions establishing the blacklist on which Mr. Abdelrazik was placed at the request of Washington in 2006 :

"Canada is free to bring Abousfian Abdelrazik home and doesn't need to ask for permission"

Addressing the Justice Department's argument that "it is geographically impossible for [Mr. Abdelrazik] to travel from Sudan to Canada by air, land or sea without transiting through the sovereign territories (land, airspace or territorial waters) of numerous UN member states which are bound at international law to prevent such transit, " Mr. Barrett stated :

"The overflight states don't come into it and they haven't ever come into it."

Well there goes legal bullshit argument#1 of the Government of Canada vs Abdelrazik, being argued today in the Supreme Court of Canada.

This just leaves Justice Department bullshit legal argument #2 : that Abdelrazik is :

"close to Abu Zubaydah, a former lieutenant of Osama bin Laden, involved in al-Qaeda training and recruitment."

That would be Abu Zubaydah, the half-wit waterboarded 83 times to coerce a false confession linking Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda in order to justify the invasion of Iraq.

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For those able to attend, the hearing today is at Supreme Court, West courtroom, 301 Wellington Street, Ottawa at 9:30am.

Wear a suit, bring pitchforks.

Harper's quest to turn Canada into an outpost of apology for the worst crimes of the Bush era shames us all.

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And thank you, Paul Koring at the G&M, for your ongoing excellent coverage of Abdelrazik's plight.

Update : Dr. Dawg attended Thursday and will update again when he returns from Friday's hearing.

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Ottawa continues to fuck Abdelrazik over

You remember him - one of Canada's other Maher Arars.

G&M : "Mr. Abdelrazik must present a fully-paid-for ticket home before “Passport Canada will issue an emergency passport," the government said in a Dec. 23 letter to his lawyers. But Mr. Abdelrazik, who is living in the Canadian embassy in Khartoum, is destitute and the government has warned that it could criminally charge anyone who lends or gives money for a ticket under its sweeping anti-terrorist regulations."

Previously, when Abousfian Abdelrazik, who has been cleared of all charges by both Sudan and the RCMP, previously when he did have the ticket money sent to him by his family in Canada to get home, a Foreign Affairs official confirmed :

"There is no unwillingness to allow him to come to Canada aboard a private plane which the Sudanese government is willing to provide".

So in Aug. 2008, Abdelrazik booked a flight to Canada on Etihad Airways, which was willing to fly him despite the fact it would mean they would be banned from entering U.S. airspace due to his presence on the U.S. no-fly list as a consequence.

Oh but the catch that time was Ottawa refusing him travel documents to get on the plane because :

Senior [Transport Canada] intelligence officials warned against allowing Abousfian Abdelrazik, a Canadian citizen, to return home from Sudan because it could upset the Bush administration, classified documents reveal.

"Senior government of Canada officials should be mindful of the potential reaction of our U.S. counterparts to Abdelrazik's return to Canada as he is on the U.S. no-fly list," intelligence officials say in documents in the possession of The Globe and Mail.

"Continued co-operation between Canada and the U.S. in the matters of security is essential. We will need to continue to work closely on issues related to the Security of North America, including the case of Mr. Abdelrazik," the document says.

The Security of North America.

I really like how you capitalize "security" - makes it look so much more official.

Odette Gaudet-Fee, a senior Foreign Affairs official in Ottawa, July 13, 2005 :

"I wish I had a magic wand and make this case go away ... I find it unethical to hold him like this in limbo with no future, no hope and all because ... Obviously I cannot address the issue of the no-fly list"

Possibly the fact that Canada evidently arranged secretly for Sudan to arrest and imprison him, and then sent Canadian Security Intelligence Service agents to interrogate him in a Sudanese prison even as diplomats knew that he was being tortured - possibly that has dampened Ottawa's enthusiasm for seeing him again. Just like Arar.

Update : As Dr. Dawg notes, "No word as yet from human rights scholar Michael Ignatieff."

Send him a clue : Ignatieff.M@parl.gc.ca

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Canada throws up yet another roadblock to Abdelrazik

"A Montreal man stranded in Sudan must get himself removed from a United Nations blacklist before he can return to Canada, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said Friday."

Un-fucking-believable

Background :

• Canada has Abdelrazik detained - and tortured, he says - in Sudan in 2003.
• Sudan releases him but not before his passport expires and his name is added to the UN Security Council's list of terrorist suspects.
• Destitute, he moves into the weight room of the Canadian embassy in Sudan.
• His family in Montreal send money for a ticket but Canada refuses to issue a temporary passport.
• In December 2008 Ottawa says he could be given a temporary passport - after he books a flight home.
• He books one; they withdraw the offer.
• Ottawa then says he must first have a fully paid ticket but in February his lawyer says anyone contributing to it can be charged with aiding a possible terrorist.
• Nonetheless in March 170 Canadians including Stephen Lewis and a former solicitor general of Ontario buy him a ticket home.

And now this.

The RCMP has cleared him. CSIS has gone so far as to ask for an internal probe to clear itself of allegations made in secret Foreign Affairs department documents.


So what's the fucking hold-up? Apparently The Security of North America


Canada feared U.S. backlash over man trapped in Sudan

Senior Canadian intelligence officials warned against allowing Abousfian Abdelrazik, a Canadian citizen, to return home from Sudan because it could upset the Bush administration, classified documents reveal.

"Senior government of Canada officials should be mindful of the potential reaction of our U.S. counterparts to Abdelrazik's return to Canada as he is on the U.S. no-fly list," intelligence officials say in documents in the possession of The Globe and Mail.

"Continued co-operation between Canada and the U.S. in the matters of security is essential. We will need to continue to work closely on issues related to the Security of North America, including the case of Mr. Abdelrazik," the document says.

The Abdelrazik documents - prepared by senior intelligence and security officials in Transport Canada, the unit that creates and maintains Canada's own version of the terrorist "no-fly" list - make clear that it was the U.S. list that kept Mr. Abdelrazik from returning to Canada when he was released from prison three years ago. "

Un-fucking-believable.
This has nothing to do with the security of Canada, much less the Security of North America, unless - like this government - you count sacrificing a Canadian citizen and the sovereignty of Canada to be worth the price of keeping those trucks flowing back and forth across the border without any accompanying U.S. frowny faces.

Update : What Dawg said.

Chris wrote to his MP asking what assurances he has that as an international traveller the government will protect him. You can do the same.

To contact Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon directly :

Telephone: (613) 992-5516 Fax: (613) 992-6802 EMail: CannoL@parl.gc.ca .

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Labour unions hire Abdelrazik

In defiance of a UN edict making it illegal to hire Abousfian Abdelrazik and to put pressure on our government to get him off that 1267 terrorist blacklist, the Canadian Labour Congress will hire Abdelrazik for a week, while the Canadian Union of Postal Workers and the International Association of Machinists will each hire him for a day. They are hiring him to tell his story, which will presumably include his being kept an exile inside his own country.

The Canadian government froze his assets in accordance with the UN list earlier this year, although they are permitting him to have an allowance from it, but he is still not permitted to work.

Here, by the way, is what the UN Security Council 1267 page has on Abdelrazik. Good grief. Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon maintains it's up to Abdelrazik to get himself off the list, although no one has yet succeeded in getting off it without the help of their government.

After Abdelrazik was arrested in Sudan at the bequest of the CSIS in 2003, he was imprisoned for twenty months during which time he was beaten and tortured and later interrogated by two CSIS agents. Abdelrazik says he also remembers being questioned in Sudan by Foreign Affairs parliamentary secretary Deepak Obhrai, who questioned him about Osama bin Laden and what he thought of Israel.

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Help Abdelrazik get a ticket home

Following yesterday's post on the plight of Abousfian Abdelrazik and the new catch-22 conditions our government has seen fit to impose on his return to Canada, Sumeet Jain, a member of BASAS, left the following comment.

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[BASAS, the British Association of South Asian Studies, is, according to their website,"the largest UK academic association for the study of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives and the South Asian Diaspora."]

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Mr Jain's request :

"See the facebook group I have set up to support Abousifian. http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=69034411293
I am asking everyone to send him a token donation to get a ticket home and to protest the Canadian government’s stand that anyone who supports him is a supporter of terrorism."

Quite right. Both Sudan and the RCMP have already cleared Abdelrazik of suspicion :

"The RCMP conducted a review of its files and was unable to locate any current and substantive information that indicates Mr. Abdelrazik is involved in criminal activity,"wrote Mike McDonell, the force's assistance commissioner for national security criminal investigations, in a Nov. 15, 2007, letter that formed the basis for the government's request that Mr. Abdelrazik be taken off the UN blacklist.
However, that request was blocked by at least one member of the UN Security Council – presumed to be the United States."

It is appalling that this has been allowed to drag on for more than five years, leaving Abdelrazik destitute and living in the Canadian embassy in Khartoum. If he is guilty of anything other than being on a no-fly list, bring him home and charge him.

Mr. Jain's facebook link above. Go.

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Update : Dr. Dawg's letter to Mr. Abdelrazik.

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Khadr, Arar, and Abdelrazik

Yesterday the G&M ran a story about Abousfian Abdelrazik and the recently released eight page 2003 Foreign Affairs memo detailing precisely which Canadian authorities arranged for Mr. Abdelrazik to be arrested and tortured in Sudan. Unfortunately "every single word, including the page numbers, was blacked out."

Blogged it at The Beav yesterday morning.

In comments there, Skdadl noted one particular passage in the G&M account which reminded her of Arar:

In an Oct., 16, 2003 e-mail marked “secret,” officials of the intelligence unit of Foreign Affairs note that CSIS agents will pass on details of their then just-completed interrogation of Omar Khadr in Guantanamo and planned to “send two officers to Sudan next week to interview Abdelrazik.” "

Was there some connection between the interrogation of Khadr and that of Abdelrazik?

In 2002 at Bagram prison, a 15 year old Omar Khadr was shown photographs of Maher Arar.

In January this year, we got headlines about it : Khadr linked Arar to terrorism, court hears

"Pentagon prosecutors dropped a bombshell on the last day of the Bush administration's war crimes trials, linking the case of Canadian detainee Omar Khadr to torture victim Maher Arar in stunning testimony...
An FBI interrogator told a military court in Guantanamo Bay Monday that Khadr said he recognized a photo of Arar because the Ottawa engineer had stayed at terrorist "safe houses" in Afghanistan.
Fuller testified that he started Khadr's interrogation in Bagram on Oct. 7, 2002."

and Arar was rendered to Syria the following day.

However the Pentagon's Arar "bombshell" was not born out in subsequent FBI statements :

"In contrast to testimony he gave Monday, [FBI]special agent Robert Fuller told Khadr's war-crimes hearing that the young Canadian was not immediately able to name Arar, but did say he looked familiar."

He looked familiar.

One day someone will write a book stitching all this together, or rather - if this pans out in the way we can now expect - how it was stitched together by showing pictures to a frightened injured child in Bagram prison and asking him if any of the faces "looked familiar".

They can call it "He Looked Familiar".

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"This is The Current" with another ad for the terrorism industry

Following his 30 hour journey back to Canada from Sudan on Saturday, Abousfian Abdelrazik did the last six hour journey from Pearson Airport to his home in Montreal by van because "federal officials barred him from the one-hour flight from Toronto". (h/t Dr.Dawg)
A one hour flight entirely within Canadian airspace.

CBC's The Current did not mention this in their segment on Abdelrazik this morning. However in their quest for fair and balanced reporting, they did follow up their interview with Abdelrazik's lawyer Yavar Hameed with one from media terrorism expert and torture advocate Neil Livingstone, introduced only as "Chairman and CEO of the security consulting firm Executive Action and the author of nine books on terrorism."

Mr. Livingstone explained that Abdelrazik was probably incriminated during the "extremely valuable" and "credible" testimony provided "under duress" by Abu Zubaydah and said that CSIS's "sister organizations in the US" have taken note that Canada is "not prepared to go to the mat for Abdelrazik".

From Mr. Livingstone's own description of his company Executive Action :

"Think of us as a McKinsey & Company with muscle, a private CIA and Defense Department available to address your most intractable problems and difficult challenges."

Indeed Executive Action boasts former CIA Director James Woolsey and former FBI Director William Sessions on its Senior Advisory Board and claims over 1300 media interviews on terrorism.
From Mr. Livingstone's own bio at Executive Action :

"He predicted the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center on CNBC six months before they occurred, said the terrorists would drop both towers, and that Osama bin Laden would be behind the attacks."

Mr. Livingstone also advocated the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in Iraq, where his company subsequently won several 'reconstruction' contracts, and is an advocate of destabilising Iran.
Last year in an article on counter-terrorism profiteering - "What did you do in Iran-Contra, Daddy?" - Larisa Alexandrovna traced Livingstone's career back to the Iran Contra affair and the push to establish an Iran-anthrax-al Qaeda link.

I don't expect The Current to have provided all this in their bio of Livingstone, but their propensity for reaching for the nearest rightwing US advocate for the terrorism industry without identifying him as such to comment on Canadian affairs continues to annoy.
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Dear Minister Lawrence Cannon :

I write in support of Abousfian Abdelrazik's constitutionally and internationally unchallengeable right to return to Canada.

I write also as a Canadian citizen whose conscience has been shocked by cascading revelations, in the courts and press of the U.S., the UK, and here at home, of the role played by Western governments, among them my own, in clear and extreme violations of international law, many of those violations rising to the level of war crimes.

Anyone with an internet account can discover in minutes that continuing American claims about Mr Abdelrazik rest on testimony from the Saudi Guantanamo detainee Abu Zubaydah, who was waterboarded 83 times in August 2002, whose torture before and since has been attested to by the ICRC and the FBI. The most credible FBI witnesses have also testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee to their doubts about Abu Zubaydah's status with regard to al-Qaeda and about his mental capacity, even before he was tortured.

The UN Security Council's 1267 Committee have said that Mr Abdelrazik is free to fly home to Canada. We know that the only testimony against him is historically, tragically tainted.

I often wonder whether members of my own government or of the departments and agencies that act in the name of the sovereign citizens of Canada, all of us represented by our queen, and thus all of us more permanent than you, superior to you, have noticed the water rising about the ankles of American public servants, former and current, who seem to have grown up ignorant of the jurisprudence we inherited from Nuremberg 1945-46. Rationalizing war crimes itself becomes a crime, and I doubt that Canadians in time to come will judge anyone who committed such crimes in our name in kindly fashion.

Mr Abdelrazik has a paid airline reservation to return to Canada on 12 June, and an appointment with the Hon. Mr Justice Zinn on 7 July. I appeal to you to respect both Canadian and international law, and to end the bizarre melodrama of my government's inexplicably duplicitous dealings with another Canadian citizen.

Please just stand aside, and allow Mr Abdelrazik to fly home.

Yours sincerely,
Skdadl at POGGE
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A superb letter, isn't it?

Send yours to :

Lawrence Cannon
Telephone: (613) 992-5516.. Fax: (613) 992-6802
Email: CannoL@parl.gc.ca

because you can bet the Cons will mount some fetid embarrassing appeal of Justice Zinn's decision on the grounds that you don't give a shit what happens to other Canadian citizens.

First they came for some brown guy based on evidence obtained by waterboarding a schizophrenic half-wit 83 times, but I did not speak out because ...
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U.N. turning the screws on Abdelrazik

Yesterday, a mere three days after the government announced it will comply with the Federal Court decision ordering it to bring Abdelrazik home, the United Nations Security Council blacklist committee decided to publish their reasons for putting him on its 1267 blacklist back in 2006. The allegations mirror similar charges posted on the U.S. Treasury Board website three years ago. What impeccable timing.

He is, they assure us, "associated with Al-Qaida, Usama bin Laden or the Taliban" and "a key member of a Montreal terrorist cell". Their case :

He attempted to go to Chechnya to fight against the Russians - twice - they say.
Really? And we're holding that against him?

He knew Ahmed Ressam, the Millenium Bomber who attempted to attack LAX in 2000.
Yes and as an avowed repudiator of terrorism, Abdelrazik testified against him for the prosecution, an act he could be forgiven for coming to regret in light of how that is turning out for him.

He told one individual that he was "personally acquainted with Osama bin Laden."

He knew Abu Zubaydah, the schizophrenic halfwit waterboarded 83 times in 2002 in order to elicit a false confession linking Sadaam and al-Qaeda that could be used to justify the US invasion of Iraq.
"That information is the fruit of torture," responded Abdelrazik's lawyer.

Abu Zubaydeh again. Abu Zubaydeh is the sad source of many allegations under torture.
Rather surprised that the UN Security Council 1267 page would have the fucking audacity to bring him up actually, but now that they have, let's go with that :

Abu Zubaydeh's lawyer, Brent Mickum :

Who is Abu Zubaydah? He was born in Saudi Arabia, but is not a Saudi citizen. He was educated in India. Following his university training, he traveled through the United States, considering possible universities where he might pursue his master's degree. In an interview with ABC, former CIA agent John Kiriakou described him as "a very friendly guy" who wrote poetry and was keen to talk about current events and compare the differences and similarities between Islam and Christianity. That has been my experience as well.

Like many other young Muslims before him, Zayn ultimately embraced the teachings of the Qur'an and traveled to Afghanistan to fight against communist insurgents who remained after the withdrawal of the Soviet army. In 1992, while fighting on the front lines, he was injured in a motor attack that left him with two pieces of shrapnel that remain embedded in his head to his day. So severe were his injuries that he lost the ability to speak for more than one year. His memory is compromised even today. He cannot remember his mother's name or picture her face. He cannot remember his father's name, but recalls that he looked like a prominent movie star in the Arab community. Although Zayn ran a news agency with a partner, he cannot remember his former partner's name.

Later, when Zayn returned to the front lines, he was told that he was no longer fit for fighting because couldn't remember how to shoot.

Zayn was never a member or a supporter of any armed forces that were allied against the United States. He had no weapon when he was taken into illegal custody. He never took up arms against the United States nor against its coalition allies. He was not picked up on a battlefield in Afghanistan at the time of his detention, but was taken into custody in Pakistan, where he was wrongfully attacked, shot, and nearly killed. So serious were his wounds that a surgeon from John Hopkins University was flown to Pakistan to perform emergency surgery to save the life of a man the Bush administration believed to be the number three man in al Qaeda."

We await the UN Security Council's explanation on why all their hardwon resolutions against torture should be laid aside to countenance the torturing of a halfwit on behalf of US colonialism.
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Abdelrazik is expected to land back in Canada on Saturday, accompanied on the flight by his lawyer, a Foreign Affairs official and two RCMP.
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Cannon and Van Loan tell Abdelrazik to piss off

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Abdelrazik wants the federal government to help him get his name removed from a United Nations terror watch list so he can lead a normal life again.

You know - get a job, go to a doctor, get on a plane, have a bank account, accept anything from anyone without risk of their being charged with being in violation of the UN's 1267 shunning regulations.

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Above are the responses to Abdelrazik's lawyers from Minister of Public Security Peter Van Loan and Minister of Foreign Affairs Lawrence Cannon telling them to piss off.

Click em to read em, courtesy of The Peoples Commission via the indefatigable Toe at BnR.

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Cannon adds further insult to injury by advising Abdelrazik to go ahead and try to get off the list himself although to date no one has ever been removed from that list without a supporting submission from their government.

Indeed the Chairman of the UN Security Council’s Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee noted two weeks ago that although Abdelrazik went on the list in 2006 - some 3 years after Canada had him arrested in Sudan - the committee has not gotten around to an indepth assessment of his case yet.

The list of 513 people currently includes 38 people presumed dead.

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CSIS recycles old leaks slagging Abdelrazik, Charkaoui

A leaked 2004 CSIS report from LaPresse on Thursday purports to be a summary of a conversation between Abousfian Abdelrazik and Adil Charkaoui  in 2000 in which they plotted to blow up an airplane enroute between Montreal and France. It has already been enthusiastically repeated across our national press :
CBC : CSIS file reveals plot to bomb plane: La Presse
Gosh, CBC, your previous nice pix of Abdelrazik and Charkaoui are now replaced by scary ones
G&M : Abdelrazik and Charkaoui plotted plane bomb: report
AFP : Two Canada terror suspects plotted France attack: report

etc. ... etc. ...
Never mind that this 'news' was already reported nearly two years ago after a federal court judge annulled Charkaoui's security certificate because government lawyers refused the judge's order to reveal their wiretap evidence, citing "security concerns".
About now you are probably wondering what kind of "security concerns" trumps giving evidence about someone you allege was plotting to blow up a plane.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney :

"I read the protected confidential dossiers on such individuals, and I can tell you that, without commenting on any one individual, some of this intelligence makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck,” he said. “I just think people should be patient and thoughtful and give the government and its agencies the benefit of the doubt."

The re-leak has nonetheless been greeted with skepticism by Boris, Dr. Dawg, Pogge, Sixth Estate and no doubt many others because we all remember previous security leaks from government officials who are more than happy to anonymously rejig conveniently-timed select bits of complete bullshit to a cooperative media.


Let's review just the anonymous bullshit security leaks about Maher Arar for instance, for which no public officials were ever called to account and who are presumably still happily at it.

In 2002 while Arar was being tortured in Syria, an anonymous official source linked Arar to "a suspected member of Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorist network." That suspected member was Abdullah Almalki - later cleared by the Iacobucci inquiry.

Commission of Inquiry into the Actions of Canadian Officials in Relation to Maher Arar :

CanWest bureau chief Robert Fife, July 24, 2003 :"Terror threats in Ottawa: Two kinds of fear: Report says
Syrian intelligence helped U.S. to foil al-Qaeda plot on target in Ottawa : One official would only tell CanWest News Service that Mr. Arar, a 36-year-old Ottawa engineer, is a 'very bad guy' who apparently received military training at an Al-Qaeda base. "

As noted by Justice O'Connor in the report : "the apparent purpose behind this leak is not attractive: to attempt to influence public opinion against Mr. Arar at a time when his release from imprisonment in Syria was being sought by the government of Canada"
Coincidentally the sudden re-issuing of this "new" leak about blowing up planes happens to coincide with Abdelrazik's attempt to get his name off the UN 1267 terror list this month.
To continue :

G&M, Oct 10, 2003 : unnamed Canadian government sources said that Mr. Arar had been “roughed up,” but not tortured, while in detention in Syria

CTV, Oct. 23, 2003 : “senior government officials in various departments” said that Mr. Arar had provided information to the Syrians about al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, and cells operating in Canada.

Juliet O'Neill, Ottawa Citizen, Nov. 2003 : “Canada’s dossier on Maher Arar: The existence of a group of Ottawa men with alleged ties to al-Qaeda is at the root of why the government opposes an inquiry into the case.”

Fife : Dec. 30, 2003 : "US, Canada '100% sure' Arar trained with al-Qaeda" : “a senior Canadian intelligence source said the United States had an extensive dossier on Mr. Arar and that “if the Americans were ever to declassify the stuff, there would be some hair standing on end."

Toronto Star : Learning from media mistakes in Arar case May 2009 :

"Unnamed officials also told Craig Oliver at CTV News that Arar was only released because he had given information to the Syrians about Al Qaeda and about other Canadians suspected of terrorism activities. Oliver later explained that he felt the story was credible because his sources were senior officials in two different government departments. Nonetheless, years after the Arar inquiry's report, he apologized to Arar in person for running the story. He also told him of an offer he had turned down – a photograph of Arar training in a camp in Afghanistan. As he describes: "The source wanted me to use the information without showing me the photograph. That was a very solid source... This experience has made me more skeptical... I knew these people very well."

So you'll have to forgive the rest of us if we also share Craig Oliver's reluctance to be conned into accepting any more conveniently-timed leaks and smears from anonymous security officials who for all we know are the same ones who previously set out to turn public opinion against Arar even as they destroyed his life for reasons they have yet to account for.
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