Federal lawyers say Canada's ability to obtain foreign intelligence will be dangerously compromised if sensitive information is released in the terrorism trial of Ottawa's Momin Khawaja. The government has asked the Federal Court of Canada to keep secret some of the evidence it intends to present against Mr. Khawaja at his criminal trial. Among the material it wants protected are documents that have been mistakenly handed to Mr. Khawaja's defence team. In a legal brief recently filed with the Federal Court, Deputy Attorney General John Sims says that full disclosure in the Khawaja case could harm anti-terrorism efforts in this country. Terrorism is an international enterprise, he says, that demands a co-operative response by nations that must be able to trust each other with intelligence. "Canada is generally a net importer of sensitive information," Mr. Sims writes. "While other states may still be willing to share information with Canada, their calculation of risk and benefit might well be different in many cases if they considered as potentially unreliable Canada's ability to guarantee the protection of information that was given to it in confidence." "This would, in turn, impair Canada's ability to combat terrorism." Mr. Khawaja, an Ottawa software developer, was arrested on March 29, 2004 at the Department of Foreign Affairs, where he was doing contract work.

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