More than six years after his arrest as an alleged al-Qaeda sleeper agent, Adil Charkaoui snipped off a GPS monitoring bracelet and left Federal Court a free man on Thursday after a judge said she intends to halt proceedings to have him deported. Although federal Justice Department lawyers maintain that Mr. Charkaoui remains a threat, they chose to withdraw much of the evidence against him rather than follow a court order to disclose information gathered from wiretaps, confidential sources and foreign intelligence serves. Under the security-certificate procedure used against Mr. Charkaoui, the government is allowed to file evidence seen only by the judge and court-appointed advocates representing the suspect. Justice Danièle Tremblay-Lamer decided last spring that much of the secret evidence against Mr. Charkaoui could be disclosed publicly without harming national security. On Thursday, she ruled that with that evidence withdrawn by government lawyers, the security certificate cannot be justified, and she ordered the immediate lifting of all conditions covering Mr. Charkaoui's release on bail. She said the certificate will inevitably fall following a closed-door hearing next week with the government's lawyers.

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