by Heba Aly Source: The Toronto Star URL: [link] Date: June 9, 2008 While inquiry meets in private, tortured trio bring tales of terror to small-town Ontario

PHOTO: From left to right, Muayyed Nureddin, Abdullah Almalki and Ahmad El Maati hold a news conference on the steps of the Prime Minister's office in Ottawa, May 8, 2008. It is a bizarre feeling – eating, walking, laughing with men who have been hung from their wrists and beaten with electric cables. To see them behave so normally despite their experiences is a bit destabilizing. But for five days, that is what I did, as three men – Abdullah Almalki, Muayyed Nureddin and Ahmad El Maati – travelled from small town to small town, telling Canadians their stories and pushing for a public inquiry into what happened to them. All three men – Canadian citizens, but also Arab and Muslim – were detained and tortured in a Syrian prison on unproven suspicions of terrorism. They accuse the Canadian government of complicity in their torture. None has ever been charged with a crime.

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by Nick Spicer and Jeremy Copeland Source: AlJazeera English URL: [link] Date: May 30, 2008


News report by Nick Spicer for ALJazeera

by Cristin Schmitz Source: The Lawyers Weekly, Vol. 27, No. 48 URL: N/A Date: April 25, 2008 Several special advocates have publicly complained that rates were lowered

The Federal Court's pending judicial review of five security certificates could be set back by the federal government's delay in announcing the final roster of special advocates, and by unresolved questions surrounding the fees to be paid to the special advocates (SAs), and to the other lawyers who are privately retained by the five men. Federal Court Chief Justice Allan Lutfy and Justice Simon Noel, the joint case-managers of the cases that will pioneer the use of security-cleared special advocates (SAs) in Canada, made it clear at an April 15 case management conference here that they want to see the five cases move forward efficiently and expeditiously in separate, but parallel hearings, that involve the same procedures and consistent determinations of any novel procedural issues that are common to the cases.

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Source: Arab American News URL: [link] Date: Sat, 24 May 2008 18:56:43 -0400 Mohamed Harakat [sic] and his wife Sophie are stuck. Harakat, an Algerian, is one of the five men against whom Canada has issued security certificates. Never charged or convicted of any crime, he is out of prison on strict bail conditions. Now, the Harakats are living in conditions that are untenable, and the judge refuses to allow them to move to the new home that they have located. They have been living in the basement of a house occupied by Sophie's mother and her boyfriend, and the bail conditions included the requirement that Sophie, her mother, or her mother's partner be with Mohamed at all times. Then the mother's romantic relationship fell apart, and she moved out. Now, relations between the Harakats (especially Sophie) and the former boyfriend in whose house they continue to live are growing ever more tense. The boyfriend, Alois Weidemann, had agreed to house them for up to six weeks after Judge Eleanor Dawson permitted his bail to continue after Sophie's mother left. Now, about three months later, tensions between Sophie and Weidemann appear close to the breaking point. Bitterness between the former lovers causes hostility when the mother visits the Harakats.

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by Stewart Bell Source: The Ottawa Citizen URL: [link] Date: May 23, 2008 Government to spend $62M for building

TORONTO - The federal government is spending $62 million to expand the country's ultra-secret electronic spy agency, Defence Minister Peter MacKay announced yesterday. The money will pay for construction of a new building in Ottawa for the Communications Security Establishment, the most secretive branch of the intelligence community. The security branch operates an electronic eavesdropping system that collects signals intelligence. It works closely with allied agencies in the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand. The announcement indicates the CSE has been growing since the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the U.S. Hundreds of employees have been hired since then and the existing campus on Leitrim Road was "no longer able to support the agency's day-to-day operations," the agency said in a press release. The new 65,000-square-foot facility will open in 2011 and house up to 250 employees. "A safe and secure Canada is one of the government's top priorities and CSE performs vital functions in safeguarding Canada's security," Mr. MacKay said in a statement. Exactly what the CSE does to protect security is one of the most closely guarded secrets in government. From its nondescript headquarters in south Ottawa, the CSE intercepts, decodes, translates and analyses the phone calls and e-mails of Canada's adversaries. It also safeguards government computer systems. Although the CSE operates under strict secrecy, signals teams are known to have played a role in the March 23, 2006, rescue of one British and two Canadian hostages in Iraq.

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by "C. Ailes"
Source: Harkat Email List (Riseup.net)
Date: May 20, 2008


[[Diana Younes article is important to read]]

Update on Security Certificate in TMLD, May 20

[link]

- Constitutional Challenge to Special Advocate Regime

- How Suresh Haunts Bill C-3 and Section 2 of the Charter - Diana Younes, The Court

- Extraordinary Renditions: Quebec Human Rights Organizations Join in Call to Bring Montreal Man Home - [link]

===============

Constitutional Challenge to Special Advocate Regime

Security certificate detainee Adil Charkaoui has filed a notice of motion before the Federal Court of Canada seeking a judgement declaring the new security certificate regime, Bill C-3, to be unconstitutional. Charkaoui is also seeking an interim order that will relax or lift the strict bail conditions he and his family are subject to.

At the time of Bill C-3's passage through the House of Commons this past February, it was widely opposed as unconstitutional, similar to the legislation it was replacing, and was expected to be the subject of a court challenge. Helen Burnett, in Lawtimesnews.com on March 10, wrote: "In their submission to the Senate committee, Lawyers Rights Watch notes that Bill C-3 does 'nothing in regard to the s. 7 issue' raised in the Supreme Court decision. 'In the words of the Supreme Court, the person concerned will still not know the case he has to meet. As such, the s. 7 fundamental justice requirement is violated,' says the submission."

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Press Release Source: The Institute For Research On Public Policy URL: [link] (links to a PDF file) Date: May 22, 2008

For immediate distribution May 22, 2008 NEWS RELEASE

Canada needs new review process for anti-terrorism laws Study finds national security laws lack independent expert review

Montreal – Parliament needs to develop an independent review system, similar to those in the United Kingdom and Australia , to scrutinize its anti-terrorism measures, according to a new study from the Institute for Research on Public Policy. In the study, "Fixing the Deficiencies in Parliamentary Review of Anti-terrorism Law: Lessons from the United Kingdom and Australia ," author Craig Forcese argues that Canada ’s Anti-terrorism Act (ATA) overreached, and adopted a definition of terrorist activity that was far broader than necessary. "Anti-terrorism provisions are too radical to be left unscrutinized," says Forcese, an associate professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa . The British and Australian assessment procedures are superior to those employed by the Canadian government in its recent ATA review. Britain ’s and Australia ’s procedures should be used as models to create a precursor expert review system. "A credible, independent evaluator will be difficult to ignore, or to paint in a partisan light. One wonders how the carefully considered views of such an evaluator might have affected the disappointing and superficial parliamentary debates on preventive detention and investigative hearings in February 2007," says Forcese.

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by "C. Ailes"
Source: Harkatjustice Email List
ULR: [link] (subscribers only)
Date: May 16, 2008

You can find the Federal Court decision regarding
Mohamed Harkat at:

[link]

par Presse Canadienne
Source: La Presse
URL: [link]
Date: 15 mai 2008


Un homme soupçonné de terrorisme s'est vu refuser le droit de déménager parce que sa nouvelle demeure rendrait sa surveillance difficile.

Mohamed Harkat a été arrêté en décembre 2002 en vertu d'un certificat de sécurité, en raison de ses liens présumés avec Al-Qaïda. Il fait face à la déportation, mais est actuellement en libération surveillée.

Harkat a demandé la permission de quitter l'appartement où il habite actuellement avec sa femme. La juge Eleanor Dawson de la Cour fédérale a toutefois refusé sa demande, parce que l'installation de caméras de surveillance n'a pas été permise dans le condo où le couple souhaitait s'installer et que les équipes de surveillance n'ont pas eu la permission de se stationner tout près.

Le Service canadien du renseignement de sécurité affirme que Harkat, un réfugié algérien, est un extrémiste islamiste membre du réseau terroriste d'Osama ben Laden. L'ancien livreur de pizza et préposé dans une station-service nie tout lien avec le terrorisme.

Copyright © 2000-2008 Cyberpresse Inc., une filiale de Gesca. Tous droits réservés.

by Andrew Duffy
Source: The Ottawa Citizen
URL: [link]
Date: May 15, 2008


OTTAWA - Ottawa terror suspect Mohamed Harkat will not be leaving his unhappy basement apartment anytime soon. A Federal Court judge ruled Thursday that Mr. Harkat cannot move to a new condominium townhouse until he meets the security concerns raised by government officials.

It means that, at least for the immediate future, Mr. Harkat and his wife, Sophie, will continue to live in the basement of a home that belongs mostly to Alois Weidemann, a retired Citizen employee, and the former romantic partner of Ms. Harkat's mother, Pierrette Brunette.

Ms. Brunette moved out of the house last November after the acrimonious collapse of that relationship, leaving Mr. Weidemann with the Harkats in his basement.

"I've been trying to get out of this situation since last fall," Mr. Weidemann said in an interview. "How are things going? Terrible. I want to get on with with my life." Mr. Weidemann, who reluctantly acts as one of Mr. Harkat's sureties, wants to sell his house, but he cannot do that without Ms. Brunette's approval since she owns 10 per cent of the property. Ms. Brunette, however, doesn't want to sell yet because her daughter and son-in-law are still in the house along with her grand piano.

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