Pressure mounts to repatriate Canadian citizen.

This is from the Globe and Mail. This government is too much. They refuse to provide evidence that they asked that Abdelrazik be removed from the UN list. Why would they do this if as they claim they actually have requested to the UN that he be removed? It makes no sense.
Abdelrazik was imprisoned at Canada's request! This is another clear case that cries out for investigation by Iacobucci but of course his inquiry was framed so narrowly that cases similar to the three he is examining will fall outside the scope of the inquiry. No doubt this is the way the inquiry was PreNot if the government can help it. The Liberals are likely to be useless in this case as well since the request was five years ago when the Liberals were in power. As I pointed out in an earlier post the UN list is itself a legal abomination. I am surprised there is not more criticism of it.

Pressure mounts to repatriate Canadian citizen
Human-rights groups, opposition MPs demand Harper government bring Abdelrazik home
PAUL KORING AND CAMPBELL CLARK

May 3, 2008

Human-rights groups and opposition MPs demanded yesterday that the Harper government repatriate Abousfian Abdelrazik, the Canadian labelled an al-Qaeda threat but now sheltered in the "temporary safe haven" of the Canadian embassy in Khartoum.

Bring him home and charge him in Canada if he is a terrorist, the Harper government was told.

"Get him out of there and bring him home now," said the NDP's foreign affairs critic, Paul Dewar.

"If there are allegations against Mr. Abdelrazik, charges should be laid and he should be tried in Canada," said Ihsaan Gardee, a spokesman for the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations.


Roch Tassé, co-ordinator of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, which represents more than a dozen rights groups across Canada, said Mr. Abdelrazik's plight - left in a foreign prison and then involuntary exile for nearly five years by successive Canadian governments that denied him a passport - echoes that of Maher Arar, the Canadian falsely fingered by the RCMP as a terrorism suspect and later shipped by the United States to Syria where he was tortured in prison.

"Mr. Abdelrazik's case brings to mind the Arar inquiry, and the current Iacobucci inquiry, which is examining the involvement of Canadian officials in the overseas detention and torture of Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati and Muayyed Nureddin," he said.

Mr. Abdelrazik also claims to have been beaten and abused while in prison in Sudan, an incarceration that secret Canadian documents obtained by The Globe and Mail acknowledge was "at our request."

Mr. Abdelrazik, 46, "has a right to travel back to Canada, his country of nationality," said John Tackaberry, spokesman for Amnesty International Canada.

"There are worrying indications that Canadian officials have played a role in the fate that has befallen him, including his arrest, detention, interrogation, listing and effective exile," he added.

Meanwhile, Mr. Abdelrazik was spending his fourth night in the Canadian embassy in Khartoum, facing what may be a long wait while the Harper government seeks to have him taken off the UN Security Council list of al-Qaeda members.

Sean Robertson, a senior foreign affairs official, wrote formally to Mr. Abdelrazik's lawyers last month assuring them that the government of Canada had already "transmitted our support for Mr. Abdelrazik's de-listing request to the 1267 Committee," a reference to the Security Council resolution bearing that number that blacklists known al-Qaeda members.

But the government is refusing to provide Mr. Abdelrazik or his lawyers with evidence of that support and yesterday it refused to make it public.

"Officials now are making up for what I would suggest is the incompetence of [Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier.] Because they're scrambling to do what he had not initiated, and that is to get Mr. Abdelrazik off the UN list," Mr. Dewar said.

Mr. Abdelrazik has repeatedly denied he has any connection to al-Qaeda or has ever been to Afghanistan, and said he just wants to return to Canada and be reunited with the children he hasn't seen in nearly five years.

Mr. Bernier told the House of Commons this week that Mr. Abdelrazik was being well cared for in the Canadian embassy but his lawyer yesterday said, "Canada's treatment of Mr. Abdelrazik is cruel and extraordinary and is causing him extreme mental suffering."

Yavar Hameed, his Ottawa-based lawyer, said Canadian diplomats in Khartoum were deliberately trying to starve Mr. Abdelrazik into leaving the embassy, only days after he was given refuge.

"Over the weekend, consular staff has stated he will not be fed three meals daily. Consular staff has also stressed that Mr. Abdelrazik's personal amenities are capped at $100 monthly, possibly not enough to go on feeding him throughout May. It appears the Harper government is trying to starve Mr. Abdelrazik out of the embassy," Mr. Hameed said yesterday in a statement.

He also said that Mr. Abdelrazik had been cut off from all information about the furor surrounding his case in Canada, denied access to newspapers, refused contact with Sudanese and Canadian news media and that his telephone calls to his lawyers were now being routed through the Foreign Affairs switchboard in Ottawa where they could be monitored.

"The commitment of Mr. Bernier to provide humanitarian aid and communication with his lawyer is being flagrantly violated," Mr. Hameed said.

Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae said, "if the Canadian government is taking the position that he's not a security risk, then they should get him home." He cannot be left at the embassy in Khartoum while Canada tries to have him removed from a UN no-fly list, Mr. Rae said. "It could be a very lengthy process."

Mr. Dewar said no-fly lists were often unreliable, pointing out that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was embarrassed this week when she was forced to admit that former South African president Nelson Mandela still appears on a U.S. watch list and cannot fly to the United States without special dispensation.

Ottawa reviews case of Canadian stuck in Sudan

This is from the Star. This is another case Iacobucci should be looking at. Of course no one will. The Iacobucci inquiry is virtually invisible these days and the mandate is so narrow that there is no way Iacobucci would look at the case even though the situation is in some ways identical to what happened to Almalki et al.
This article does not even mention the no fly issue for some reason. The Canadian government obviously tipped off the Sudanese government and Abdelrazak was subsequently imprisoned and interrogated. As with the U.S. intelligence services our intelligence services think nothing of turning suspects over to be imprisoned in places we know practice torture. I just wonder what Iacobucci will conclude not that it will matter much. His inquiry has no concern at all with clearing Almalki, et al of any wrongdoing as the Arar inquiry did. Of course no one has paid for the "mistakes" made by intelligence services in the Arar case. Some involved have since been promoted.


Ottawa reviews case of Canadian stuck in Sudan
TheStar.com - Canada - Ottawa reviews case of Canadian stuck in Sudan

April 29, 2008
Alexander Panetta
THE CANADIAN PRESS

OTTAWA–A man stranded in Sudan took refuge in the Canadian embassy in Khartoum while seeking a resolution today to his five-year ordeal.

A lawyer for Sudanese-Canadian Abousfian Abdelrazik says his client has been allowed to stay at the embassy and plans to remain there until he gets answers from Ottawa.

Lawyer Yavar Hameed is accusing the federal government of duplicity and disinformation, with a mounting trail of evidence suggesting it has been blocking efforts to bring his client home.

Abdelrazik went to visit his ailing mother in 2003 and was caught in legal limbo after accusations he has terrorist ties; no criminal charges have been filed against the former Montrealer.

He suffers from asthma, heart problems, and an ulcer, and is living on a $100 monthly loan from the Canadian government.

Abdelrazik's ex-wife has demanded that Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier deal with his case.

"He is not a terrorist. He is a Muslim. He is a practising Muslim but a peaceful Muslim," said Myriam St-Hilaire.

"He is a Canadian citizen and he has rights and I'm just asking the government to take in consideration this fact."

She said their son is only 5 years old and doesn't understand what has happened to his father – whom he can't even remember.

"I'm asking Mr. Bernier: What am I supposed to answer him when he grows up and he tells me, `Why wasn't my dad able to be next to me when I was a child?"' St-Hilaire said.

"Mr. Bernier, what am I supposed to answer him?"

Hameed said his client's only contact with Bernier's office has seemed more like an inquisition than consular assistance.

He said Bernier's chief of staff and Conservative MP Deepak Obhrai peppered him with questions about his views on the 9-11 attacks, and on the state of Israel.

He said the Canadian government has done nothing to renew his client's passport or get his name off a no-fly list so that he can take a commercial flight home. He said Ottawa has also rejected an offer from the Sudanese government to fly him to Canada.

Bernier's office said it was reviewing the case, but added that Abdelrazik remains a terrorism suspect. After avoiding comment for two days, the foreign minister's office issued a statement:

"We continue to provide Mr. Abdelrazik with consular assistance. Services include medical and financial assistance, facilitating communications with family and lawyers, as well as providing 'temporary safe haven' at our embassy in Khartoum," the statement said.

"Mr. Abdelrazik is unable to return to Canada of his own accord because he is currently on the United Nations list of terrorism suspects alleged to be affiliated with Al Qaeda, the Taliban or Osama bin Laden."

During Abdelrazik's visit to see his mother, he was arrested by Sudanese officials on a tip from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, said his lawyer.

He was released when investigators found no evidence to support criminal charges.