Source: Sun Media
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Date: October 21, 2009
A Federal Court judge slammed Canada's spy agency for filtering evidence" in failing to tell the court a secret informant failed portions of a lie-detector test in the case of alleged terrorist Mohamed Harkat.
In a decision made public Tuesday, Judge Simon Noel ordered the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to give him details of a confidential source CSIS is using in their allegations against Harkat, an Algeria-born alleged al-Qaida sleeper agent the Canadian government wants to deport.
The failure of CSIS and its witnesses to disclose the polygraph information has seriously damaged confidence in the current system," said Noel.
The government is trying to deport Harkat, a former pizza delivery man, using a national security certificate, a rarely used immigration provision.
Noel found evidence given about the polygraph issue from three CSIS witnesses -- whose names are confidential -- was at times inaccurate and incomplete" and concluded information filed by CSIS in the Harkat case had been filtered."
Filtering evidence, even with the best of intentions, is unacceptable," said Noel.
Norm Boxall, Harkat's lawyer, called Noel's rebuke of CSIS's handling of the evidence against Harkat extremely serious."
If we know they filter for court, how much filtering goes before they start their file up?" said Boxall of the spy agency's evidence-collecting.
In a statement, CSIS said the court found the shortcoming in disclosure was not an intentional effort to hide information.
Noel gave CSIS five days to turn over copies of the file on one of the confidential sources to the court and to two special advocates, court-appointed lawyers with clearance to see secret evidence and act as watchdogs for Harkat.
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