Original author: Michelle Shephard
Source: The Toronto Star
URL: [link] (subscribers only)
Date: September 15, 2005
Security certificate cases `unfair'
Ottawa urged to take cue from inquiry
OTTAWA - After months of challenging the federal government's national security claims that forced evidence at a public inquiry to be heard in private, the Arar inquiry's lead lawyer is now lashing out against secret court trials in Canada.
Toronto lawyer Paul Cavalluzzo lambasted the federal government yesterday for allowing uncontested evidence to be presented privately to a judge in national security certificate cases. He suggested that the federal inquiry investigating the case of Maher Arar, which wrapped up hearings this week, should be used as a model for security cases involving sensitive intelligence.
While much of the evidence at the inquiry was presented in private, both commission counsel and an independently appointed amicus curiae, or friend of the court, attended the in-camera sessions to challenge the accuracy and reliability of the evidence.
Original author: Jeff Sallot
Source: The Globe and Mail
URL: [link]
Date: September 15, 2005
Chief counsel at Arar inquiry wants new model for deportations
OTTAWA -- The government and its intelligence officers can't be trusted to always get it right when they claim somebody is a national-security risk, the chief counsel at the Arar inquiry said yesterday, proposing a system for independent lawyers to vigorously challenge evidence at secret deportation hearings.
Paul Cavalluzzo, who has been grilling RCMP and CSIS witnesses in both public and secret hearings in the case of Ottawa software engineer Maher Arar, said the procedures adopted by the inquiry could serve as a model for the way courts deal with attempts by the government to deport individuals as security threats.
Current deportation proceedings -- secret court hearings closed to the individuals and their lawyers -- do not adequately protect the rights of people who can be kicked out of the country on flimsy evidence, Mr. Cavalluzzo told a news conference.
posted on September 15, 2005 | in Category CSIS | PermaLink
Original author: CTV.ca News Staff
Source: CTV.CA
URL: [link]
Date: September 14, 2005
Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew apologized Wednesday for how Canada's spy agency sullied the personal and professional life of a consular appointee.
The apology comes after a report obtained by The Globe and Mail and other news agencies revealed that Bhupinder Singh Liddar was denied a consular appointment to India because of a hasty, slipshod assessment by a rookie CSIS investigator.
In the report by Paule Gauthier, the former chairwoman of the Security Intelligence Review Committee, a CSIS investigator misinterpreted work Liddar did in the Middle East and Ottawa as long as 30 years ago.
Canadian Muslim and Arab Groups Deeply Concerned Over CSIS Practices
posted on September 15, 2005 | in Category Canada | PermaLink
Original author: PRESSS RELEASE
Source: CAIR-CAN
URL: [link]
Date: September 14, 2005
For immediate release
(Ottawa, Canada - 14/09/05) - The National Council on Canada-Arab Relations (NCCAR), the Canadian Arab Federation (CAF) and the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-CAN), supported by a coalition of organisations and community leaders, are alarmed over allegations that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) discriminates against people who associate with Arab causes.
A leaked report written by the former chairperson of the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC) following a complaint by a diplomatic appointee who was denied top-security status has found fault with CSIS for leaping to the â?œunqualifiedâ?? conclusion that a person who supports Arab causes should be deemed suspicious. The report also says that CSIS attempted to mislead SIRC to save the spy agency from embarrassment.
posted on September 15, 2005 | in Category CSIS | PermaLink
Original author: Bill Curry and Colin Freeze
Source: The Globe and Mail
URL: [link]
Date: September 14, 2005
Watchdog 'misled' by CSIS
Secret report blasts agency's investigation of public servant it deemed a security risk
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service "purposefully misled" the agency charged with overseeing it in a likely attempt to "suppress information that was embarrassing to the Service," a new report finds. "I wish that such events never occur again," Paule Gauthier, former chairwoman of the Security Intelligence Review Committee, writes in a secret report obtained yesterday by The Globe and Mail and other news organizations.
In one of the most strongly worded official criticisms of CSIS to date, Ms. Gauthier faults the agency for a hasty, slipshod investigation and a "regrettable" attitude that supporting Arab causes can be suspicious.
The long-anticipated report follows a complaint from Bhupinder S. Liddar, a public servant whom CSIS declared a security risk after his 2003 diplomatic posting to India.
Original author: TASC (Toronto Action for Social Change) Source: TASC Email List Date: September 12, 2005
Friends, given the sheer amount of recent activity, we don't want to fill up your email with lengthy messages. Instead, there are references to website postings on the following items:
1. Mahjoub Hunger strike Today, secret trial detainee Mohammad Mahjoub enters day 68 of a hunger strike which may very well take his life unless the governments of Ontario and Canada act to meet his demands for urgent medical treatment and contact visits with his children. For background information and suggestions for what you can do, please visit: [link]
2. Jaballah Bail Hearing This morning in Federal Court a bail hearing will resume for secret trial detainee Mahmoud Jaballah, which heard three days of emotional testimony last week. Jaballah, family and friends described the mental torture against him and his family from the past 4+ years of indefinite incarceration without charge or bail. A CSIS agent also testified for the better part of a day, and it was revealed that CSIS' latest report on the effect of incarceration on long-term detainees appears to have deliberately held back crucial information from the Canadian government. A detailed report from the bail hearing is at:
Original author: Harsha Walia Source: Georgia Strait (British Columbia) URL: [link] Date: September 8, 2005
Hassan Almrei is a 31-year-old Syrian national who has been held in a provincial prison in Ontario for almost four years despite never having been convicted of a crime in Canada. During the Labour Day weekend, he ended a hunger strike after 73 days, a protest during which he demanded the same rights as a federal inmate.
His main demand is to be allowed the right to one hour a day of exercise outside his cell, a right enjoyed by all federal inmates. But both the federal and provincial governments consider Hassan a provincial inmate, so he is only allowed 20 minutes of exercise a day.
Provincial prisons are generally meant to detain prisoners for short periods. So why has Hassan served four years in solitary confinement in one of them? Because to serve time in a federal penitentiary, a person must be convicted of a crime and sentenced to more than two years, and Hassan has not yet been convicted of any crime.
Hassan is one of five men-collectively known as the "Secret Trial Five"-whose lives have been torn apart by accusations that they are not allowed to fight in a fair and independent trial.
Original author: Megan Gillis Source: The Ottawa Sun URL: [link] Date: September 7, 2005
An Ottawa man jailed as a suspected terrorist for 1,001 days without criminal charges or a trial, will take his fight against deportation to Syria to the Supreme Court of Canada.
Three Federal Court of Appeal justices took mere minutes yesterday to uphold a national security certificate against Mohamed Harkat.
The justices dismissed a second appeal by a detained Muslim man that Canada's immigration law is unconstitutional.
Harkat's lawyer Paul Copeland argued that deporting people based on evidence they can't see or challenge violates their constitutional right to fundamental justice.
At minimum, the law should allow for security-cleared lawyers to hear and challenge secret testimony, Copeland argued.
Original author: Jim Brown (CP)
Source: The Globe and Mail
URL: [link]
Date: September 7, 2005
Federal Court rejects Harkat's appeal but his lawyer says the fight will continue
OTTAWA -- Mohamed Harkat, an Ottawa man jailed for nearly three years on suspicion of terrorist ties, is headed for the Supreme Court of Canada in an effort to stave off deportation.
Lawyer Paul Copeland said yesterday that the high court will be his next stop after the Federal Court of Appeal took only 90 minutes to reject a constitutional challenge by his client.
At issue is a security certificate filed by the government against Mr. Harkat alleging he has links to al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, and should be sent back to his native Algeria.
Under the controversial legal process that governs such certificates, defence lawyers have not been allowed to see the detailed intelligence the federal government has gathered to support its claims. Advertisements
Nor have they been able to cross-examine officials of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service or others who provided information.
Instead, a judge of the trial division of Federal Court reviewed the evidence in Mr. Harkat's case in private, and concluded earlier this year that there were credible grounds to consider Mr. Harkat a threat to national security.
Original author: Andrew Duffy
Source: The Ottawa Citizen
URL: [link]
Date: September 07, 2005
Federal Court rejects contention security certificates unconstitutional Andrew Duffy The Ottawa Citizen
The case of Mohamed Harkat, an Ottawa pizza delivery man accused of working for the al-Qaeda terrorist network, appears headed for the Supreme Court of Canada.
A constitutional challenge launched by Mr. Harkat was quickly dismissed by the Federal Court of Appeal yesterday, setting the stage for his case to join a similar one to be heard by Canada's top court.
Mr. Harkat's lawyer, Paul Copeland, was in the odd position yesterday of favouring a swift rejection of his own argument since only then could he move on to the high court.
As a result, he urged the panel of judges to act quickly if unmoved by his contention that Mr. Harkat had been denied his right to fundamental justice.
The three-member panel complied, issuing a decision within minutes of Mr. Copeland's submissions.
Chief Justice John Richard said Mr. Copeland failed to reveal any "manifest errors" in the court's earlier decision to uphold the security certificate process as constitutional -- a decision that came in the case of accused terrorist Adil Charkaoui of Montreal.
The Supreme Court announced last month that it will hear Mr. Charkaoui's appeal.
Mr. Harkat's wife, Sophie, was in court for yesterday's hearing, along with filmmaker Alexandre Trudeau, the son of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, who has become an important advocate for security certificate detainees.
Mr. Harkat marked his 1,000th day in custody on Monday. He has spent most of that time in maximum security at the Ottawa Carleton Detention Centre.
"This process is taking a long, long time," said Ms. Harkat after the hearing, "and we don't see an end to this."
Earlier this year, Mr. Harkat was ordered deported to his native Algeria after Judge Eleanor Dawson upheld the security certificate issued against him by the federal government in December 2002.
Click on the photo of Mohamed to see all items related to him. JUNE 2017: Mohamed Harkat once again faces deportation to his native Algeria after the Supreme Court of Canada declared the federal government’s security certificate regime constitutional.
This fight is not over. The Justice for Mohamed Harkat Committee will re-double its efforts to see that justice is done for Mohamed Harkat and that the odious security certificate system of injustice is abolished once and for all.
