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 Re: قاضي كندي يأمر الحكومة الكندية بإعادة المواطن السوداني أبوسفيان عبد الرزاق لكندا (Re: محمد عثمان الحاج)
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Court orders government to let Abdelrazik return
JIM BRONSKILL
June 04, 2009 7:16 p.m.
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Text size OTTAWA - A judge has ordered the Harper government to arrange the return of a Montreal man stranded for years in Sudan, ruling that his rights have been violated.
Federal Court Justice Russel Zinn says the government breached Abousfian Abdelrazik's constitutional rights by not giving him an emergency passport to fly home - a violation it has "failed to justify."
Zinn ordered him returned within 30 days.
Abdelrazik, a Canadian with family in Montreal, was arrested but not charged during a 2003 visit to Sudan to see his ill mother.
He says CSIS and American FBI officers interrogated him over alleged terrorist links and claims he was tortured by his jailers. Canada says it knew nothing of the alleged mistreatment.
Sudanese authorities have released Abdelrazik, who denies involvement in extremism, and the RCMP says there is no information linking him to criminal activities.
In July 2006, however, the United States branded Abdelrazik as a supporter of al-Qaida, and the United Nations subsequently added him to a security blacklist.
In his judgment Thursday, Zinn said there was no evidence Abdelrazik has any affiliation with the terrorist network.
While he was behind bars, Abdelrazik's passport expired. He has been living in the Canadian Embassy in Khartoum.
Zinn said the government violated Abdelrazik's Charter right to enter Canada by failing to justify its decision to deny him a temporary passport.
"He lives by himself with strangers while his immediate family, his young children, are in Montreal," the judge wrote.
"He is as much a victim of international terrorism as the innocent persons whose lives have been taken by recent barbaric acts of terrorists.
"In this case, the refusal of the emergency passport effectively leaves Mr. Abdelrazik as a prisoner in a foreign land, consigned to live the remainder of his life in the Canadian Embassy or leave and risk detention and torture."
Zinn said it appears Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon did not follow set procedures in refusing the travel document, nor did the minister explain whether Abdelrazik posed a security risk if returned to Canada.
After reviewing internal correspondence the judge concluded CSIS was "was complicit in the detention" of Abdelrazik six years ago. Zinn said that finding may change "if and when full and compete information" is provided by the spy service as to its role.
In March, CSIS director Jim Judd said the service does not arrange for the arrest of Canadians overseas, and asked a watchdog, the Security Intelligence Review Committee, to examine CSIS's role in the Abdelrazik case.
Zinn also found:
-By mid-2004, Canadian authorities had determined they would not take any active steps to assist the man's return to Canada, and would consider refusing him a passport in order to thwart his homecoming;
-The government's claim that Abdelrazik couldn't fly to Canada due to his inclusion on the UN security list was actually "no impediment" to his repatriation.
The judge said it was "frightening" that someone could wind up on the UN list on the basis of suspicion, and noted the "extreme difficulty" in trying to have one's name removed.
"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."
Paul Champ, one of Abdelrazik's lawyers, called the ruling "pretty great."
"We're starting to see more and more cases where the Federal Court is becoming more circumspect about the actions of CSIS, and this is yet one more example of that."
It was unclear late Thursday whether the government would appeal the court ruling.
In the House of Commons, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said the government would read it "very carefully before taking any course of action."
NDP House leader Libby Davies accused the government of trampling on Abdelrazik's rights.
"I mean this man has been put through hell. His family has been put through hell ... And so the fact that they're not saying today whether they're going to appeal it or not is just a further evidence of how this file has been handled so badly."
About 250 people chipped in to buy Abdelrazik an airline ticket this year. But he could not leave Sudan without a passport.
Zinn said if the unused ticket is no longer valid, the government must pay his airfare.
Abdelrazik supporter James Loney of the group Project Fly Home said the government should comply with the order.
"If the government decides to appeal, I think it would be a travesty of justice
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