by "Justice for Mohamed Harkat" Committee
Source: Harkatjustice mailing list
URL: [link] (subscribers only)
Date: December 8, 2010
(LE FRANÇAIS SUIT LA VERSION ANGLAISE)
To all friends and supporters of Justice for Mohamed Harkat:
This part of the waiting is almost over.
Soon the judge will rule in Mohamed Harkat’s case. We expect the decision on whether the security certificate against him is “reasonable” to be released very soon. What the decision will be remains to be seen. Scroll down for information on what to do if the outcome goes against justice.
No matter what happens, we've already achieved major advances, because:
- People across Canada know and oppose security certificates and the use of secret evidence and information gleamed from torture in judicial proceedings; - The government has not been able to use security certificates in years (barring one sensational case obviously an attempt to legitimize the process); - Two out of five certificates have already been quashed or deemed unreasonable, and all five detainees have a modicum of freedom they did not have for years;
And all of this would not have been possible without all of you.
Now, we need your support again, and more than ever.
IF THE DECISION IS IN FAVOUR OF JUSTICE FOR MOHAMED HARKAT
Have a celebration in your area - and raise money for the other two cases. Two others apart from Mohamed Harkat are still awaiting justice: Mahmoud Jaballah and Mohamed Mahjoub. All five recent detainees have been targeted by the government, singled out for discrimination and accusations by the media, and been held without charge for years. Their cases will still need our support!
IF THE DECISION IS AGAINST JUSTICE FOR MOHAMED HARKAT
There will be an EMERGENCY DAY OF ACTION - actions are called for 530 pm the day after the decision is announced. Make preparations now to make sure your committee, union, or organization is ready to respond!
In Ottawa, events will be coordinated by the Justice for Mohamed Harkat Committee. If you can make it to Ottawa for these events, please do!
If you are organizing an event, let us know at [email]
by Andrew Duffy
Source: The Ottawa Citizen
URL: [link]
Date: November 6, 2010
[PHOTO: Mohamed Harkat smiles during a news conference in Ottawa on Sept. 22, 2009.]
Terror suspect faces long delay before hearing fate
OTTAWA — Accused terrorist Mohamed Harkat has been told not to expect a decision in his Federal Court case anytime soon.
Harkat, an Ottawa pizza delivery man who was first arrested on a national security certificate in December 2002, has been fighting to clear his name of terrorist allegations ever since.
“Waiting is the worst part,” said the Algerian-born Harkat, who received notice this week that the decision in his case has been delayed.
Judge Simon Noel must decide if Harkat was a member of the al-Qaida terrorism network and whether he still poses a security threat to Canadians.
Final arguments in the case concluded in June and a decision was expected this fall.
But Harkat has received notice that a judgment will not be delivered “in the near future” due to the unusual number of factual and legal issues to be decided in the case, including a constitutional challenge to the security certificate regime.
Harkat said the wait for Noel’s ruling has been among the most difficult parts of his eight-year legal odyssey.
“Waiting eats me from the inside out,” he said.
Two other accused terrorists, Adil Charkaoui and Hassan Almrei, had their security certificates quashed last year by the Federal Court. Both men are now suing the federal government for millions in damages.
by Justin Sadler Source: The Ottawa Sun URL: [link] Date: November 5, 2010
His future, perhaps his life, hangs in the balance, but the waiting game continues.
After a nearly eight-year saga that began with Mohamed Harkat’s arrest on a national security certificate and despite the anticipated late-October timeline for a ruling in his case, Harkat and his wife Sophie are still waiting for justice.
“The judge has our lives in his hands and the next call will be the call that defines the rest of our lives,” Sophie said Friday.
“The actual trial and all is difficult but the waiting is the worst part for us.”
“This is a different kind of torture.”
Harkat, an Ottawa resident who worked as a gas station attendant and pizza delivery driver, is accused of operating a safehouse for Islamic extremists in Pakistan and having associations with a known jihadist and a top al-Qaida operative, both now deceased.
The Algerian refugee was arrested in December 2002 and held for 3 1/2 years before his release on bail in June 2006.
Proceedings into whether the government’s use of a security certificate against Harkat was reasonable wrapped up in early June.
But recently, Harkat’s legal team received an update from the federal court notifying the decision wouldn’t be coming anytime soon.
“Due to the numerous questions of facts and law being dealt with as part of the decisions ... the judgments to be rendered will not be made public shortly,” the notice from Justice Noel said.
“What the hell does that mean?” Sophie said, adding the delay has been agonizing.
“We were disappointed obviously. Our lives have been on hold for eight years now and we’d really like to move on,” she said. “We’ve been very, very anxious the last couple of months because we’ve been on standby.”
Regardless of the ruling, Harkat could be deported to his native Algeria, where he faces the possibility of torture, his appointed “special advocate” and human rights lawyer Paul Copeland said.
If the certificate is quashed, it’ll be up to the immigration ministry, he said.
“The decision has always been send them back and the courts have all overturned all of those,” he said.
Based on those decision, Sophie and Mohamed Harkat remain optimistic.
by "[email]"
Source: The People's Commission Network
URL: [link]
Date: October 1, 2010
Over the past decade, we have, through strong public campaigns and legal action, won real victories in the campaign against security certificates. Most significantly, two of the detainees – Adil Charkaoui and Hassan Almrei - were freed from this nightmare last year. But despite no longer being shackled by house arrest and the threat of deportation to torture, their names remain sullied by the unfounded allegations which made their lives hell.
And for the other three men and their families, the fight continues.
Below:
1. Call to Action for Harkat;
2. Updates on Mahjoub and Jaballah;
3. Updates on Charkaoui, Almrei and Ikhlef.
::: CALL TO ACTION – JUSTICE FOR MOHAMED HARKAT :::
Soon the Federal Court judge will rule in Mohamed Harkat’s case. The decision on whether the security certificate against him is “reasonable” could come any day.
A decision that a certificate is “reasonable” is effectively a deportation order. It will determine whether Mohamed and his wife Sophie will at last have their lives restored to them or whether they will have to continue struggling for justice.
--> IF THE DECISION IS AGAINST JUSTICE FOR MOHAMED HARKAT
There will be an EMERGENCY DAY OF ACTION. Actions are called for 5:30 pm the day after the decision is announced. Make preparations now to make sure your committee, union, or organization is ready to respond!
In Ottawa, events will be coordinated by the Justice for Mohamed Harkat Committee. If you can make it to Ottawa for these events, please do!
If you are organizing an event, let the Committee for Justice for Mohamed Harkat know at [email]
Watch for updates - and be ready to move! For more info, [link]
--> IF THE DECISION IS IN FAVOUR OF JUSTICE FOR MOHAMED HARKAT
Have a celebration in your area and support the two people still under security certificates, Mahmoud Jaballah and Mohammed Mahjoub. (See below.)
by Mohammed Adam
Source: The Vancouver Sun
URL: [link]
Date: September 11, 2010
September 11 was the day the world changed. Fear followed, and many lived scared. As one observer points out, 'Fear can lead to scares and scares can lead to witchhunts'
OTTAWA — On a rainy Ottawa day, a man meets a friend at a popular shawarma restaurant for lunch. Another travels to his Middle-Eastern homeland to seek a wife. A routine check at a border crossing reveals a tourist map of the capital in a truck. A young volunteer travels to the Indian sub-continent to work for a charity.
These mundane activities happen every day, and nobody pays any particular attention. However, since Sept. 11, 2001, when fear of terrorism swept the country, lunch at the Mango Café in Alta Vista suddenly took on a sinister meaning for Maher Arar, for example. Overnight, Muslim men fell under collective suspicion. As Arar, Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati, Muayyed Nureddin and others found out, when people are scared, things can quickly turn nasty.
A federal judge is preparing to deliver his ruling this fall in the case of Algerian immigrant Mohamed Harkat, 42, who came to Canada in 1995 as a refugee, but was arrested in 2002 under a security certificate on suspicion of being an al-Qaeda sleeper agent. It remains to be seen how society will judge him, but one thing is very certain: Shaking the terrorist label is difficult indeed.
CSIS would use torture-tainted info, briefing notes say
posted on September 13, 2010 | in Category CSIS | PermaLink
by Jim Bronskill Source: The Globe and Mail URL: [link] Date: September 12, 2010
Canada's spy agency says it would use information obtained through torture to derail a possible terrorist plot – a position critics argue will only encourage abusive interrogations.
The statement from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, contained in briefing notes released to The Canadian Press, echoes remarks by a spy agency official that sparked a public controversy – and a quick retraction – last year.
CSIS will share information received from an international partner with the police and other authorities “even in the rare and extreme circumstance that we have some doubt as to the manner in which the foreign agency acquired it,” say the notes prepared for CSIS director Dick Fadden.
The notes say although such information would never be admissible in court to prosecute someone posing an imminent threat, “the government must nevertheless make use of the information to attempt to disrupt that threat before it materializes.”
The CSIS position is “alarming” and contravenes a federal government directive to the spy agency to shun brutal methods, NDP public safety critic Don Davies said. “CSIS appears to be trying to open the door to be able to rely on information derived from torture, and that's in violation of the policy.”
The federal directive, made public last year, says the government “is steadfast in its abhorrence of and opposition to the use of torture by any state or agency for any purpose whatsoever.”
It instructs CSIS to “not knowingly rely upon information which is derived from the use of torture” and to take measures “to reduce the risk that any action on the part of the Service might promote or condone, or be seen to promote or condone the use of torture.”
by Mohammed Adam
Source: The Ottawa Citizen
URL: [link]
Date: September 4, 2010
Experts reflect on the reasonableness of reasonableness hearings
[PHOTO: Mohamed Harkat, on bail while being held under a national security certificate, is illuminated by a beam of light while waiting in the foyer of the Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa February 28, 2007.]
It is called "a reasonableness hearing" -- a chance for terror suspects facing deportation to make their case -- but it seemed more like something out of a Kafka novel when Mohamed Harkat tried to do so in an Ottawa courtroom earlier this year. Harkat, 42, an Algerian immigrant who arrived in Canada as a refugee in 1995, was arrested on a security certificate in 2002 on suspicion of being an al-Qaeda sleeper agent. After three-and-half years in detention, he was released on strict conditions. He has always denied any links to terrorism.
Since September 2008, Justice Simon Noël has heard much of the evidence in secret. Although government lawyers attended the closed hearings, Harkat and his lawyers were excluded because the information against him is classified. And while the Ottawa man was represented at these sessions by special advocates, they were not allowed to discuss evidence with him or his lawyers because it might breach national security.
Noël is expected to deliver his verdict in the fall. In the meantime, the debate continues about the legitimacy of the proceedings.
by Cristin Schmitz Source: The Lawyers Weekly URL: [link] Date: July 16, 2010
Are immigration security certificates dead?
Following a spate of court defeats since last fall, the government has been quietly re-examining whether security certificates are still viable in terrorism-related cases which raise the prospect of indefinitely detaining the named person, or deporting them back to countries where they may be tortured.
Special advocates and other experts on national security law told The Lawyers Weekly the Harper government may be poised to abandon security certificates in favour of an administrative model for ejecting permanent residents and foreign nationals it deems to be a danger to Canada.
“The feeling I get, and nothing has been said to me [by officials],…is that the government has found the security certificate cases too complicated, too long, and expensive, and will attempt to achieve whatever objective they have concerning permanent residents or foreign nationals by some other procedure — which could be before the immigration division of the Immigration and Refugee Board, or some other kind of administrative body or person,” says Paul Cavalluzzo of Toronto’s Cavalluzzo Hayes.
Paul Copeland of Toronto’s Copeland Duncan notes “the general opinion among all of the special advocates who have worked on the [five al-Qaeda-related security certificate] cases is that [the government] won’t do another.”
However Cavalluzzo, who with Copeland is special advocate (SA) for security certificate detainee Mohamed Harkat, says he doubts that the government can come up with an acceptable, in camera administrative procedure for handling immigration cases that involve national security claims and secret evidence, particularly if the cases are to be presided over by a non-lawyer decision-maker.
by Andrew Duffy Source: The Ottawa Citizen // The Vancouver Sun URL: [link] Date: June 25, 2010
OTTAWA — The federal government, in contesting a $180-million lawsuit by three Muslim-Canadians, is refusing to accept the factual findings of its own judicial inquiry into the detention and torture of the men in Syria and Egypt.
It means Canadian taxpayers could end up paying millions more to re-establish the same facts set out by the $6-million inquiry headed by former Supreme Court Justice Frank Iacobucci.
"They (the government) will spend as much again re-litigating this, if not more," said lawyer Philip Tunley, who represents Egyptian-born Ahmad El-Maati.
"The cost will be enormous," he said.
In his October 2008 report, Iacobucci found that El-Maati, a former Toronto truck driver, Abdullah Almalki, an Ottawa electrical engineer, and Muayyed Nureddin, a Toronto car exporter, were detained and tortured in the Middle East due in part to the actions of Canadian officials.
Iacobucci detailed a series of investigatory and diplomatic failures in the cases, which unfolded between 2001 and 2004.
Iacobucci, however, did not single out any individual for blame. Instead, he said the officials involved conscientiously carried out their duties at a time — post 9/11 — when there was "intense pressure" on intelligence and law enforcement agencies.
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.
CSIS accused of spying on GTA mosques
