A former Canadian Security Intelligence Service agent says CSIS had very little information to indicate whether Abousfian Abdelrazik was a national security threat during his final years in Sudan — information that was shared with the federal government, which is now being sued for denying the Montreal man passage back to Canada.
The CSIS agent — identified in Federal Court only as ‘T’ — testified Wednesday and Thursday as part of Abdelrazik’s $27 million lawsuit against the government and former foreign affairs minister Lawrence Cannon.
Abdelrazik, who was born in Sudan and became a Canadian citizen in 1995, was arrested in Sudan during a 2003 trip and interrogated while in custody by CSIS officials about suspected extremist links. The Montreal-based father has denied any involvement with terrorism.
Abdelrazik alleges the Canadian government abandoned him in Sudan for six years before the Federal Court ruled in June of 2009 that Ottawa had breached his constitutional rights and ordered him home.
Abdelrazik, who has never been charged with any terrorism-related offences, says he was tortured during two periods of detention by the Sudanese intelligence agency.
‘T’ worked in counterterrorism for CSIS and was involved in Abdelrazik’s file for years. The trial has heard already how CSIS first took an interest in Abdelrazik in 1996 due to his association with people suspected of being national security threats.
The CSIS witness testified — off-screen and with voice modulation — about a meeting with Cannon, who was under pressure to grant Abdelrazik an emergency travel document so he could fly back to Canada.
The witness told federal lawyers they could not remember the date of the meeting.
“From memory, the assessment would be that since Mr. Abdelrazik had travelled to Sudan, the service did not possess new intelligence or significant intelligence to determine if Mr. Abdelrazik, in fact, remained a threat to national security,” they said, responding to a question from Paul Champ, the plaintiff’s lawyer.
Officials felt Cannon ignored advice: document
The courtroom has already heard details of the struggle to get Abdelrazik out of Khartoum. He was placed on a UN list of individuals associated with al-Qaeda; that listing prevented member states from providing him transit or entry. That meant commercial airlines would not fly him to Canada.
Starting in 2007, his lawyer Yavar Hameed began petitioning the government to support a request to have him removed from the UN blacklist.
According to an agreed statement of facts, CSIS and the RCMP were asked by Foreign Affairs officials if they had any “current and substantive information to support Mr. Abdelrazik’s continued listing.”
Then CSIS director Jim Judd and RCMP Assistant Commissioner Mike McDonell responded with letters in November 2007 indicating that neither agency had current and substantive information regarding Abdelrazik, according to the agreed statement of facts.
T testified that CSIS did not have any new intelligence to say whether Abdelrazik was a threat when Cannon denied him an emergency passport in 2009.
Emails shown to the witness Thursday showed that Foreign Affairs officials had advised Cannon to approve the travel document.
Cannon denied Abdelrazik an emergency passport on April 3, 2009. A Foreign Affairs official felt the minister had “ignored” the advice, according to the email exhibit.
Champ asked the CSIS witness if he felt his briefing played a role in Cannon’s decision.
“I have no idea why Mr. Cannon made the decision he did,” said T, speaking in French.
Cannon is expected to testify next month.
Abdelrazik was removed from the UN Security Council terrorism blacklist in 2011.
Although it was filed in 2009, Abdelrazik’s claim is only now being heard in Federal Court after a lengthy delay over the use of sensitive documents.
Federal lawyers originally moved a motion to bar the public and media from the courtroom when protected witnesses were called “to avoid injury to Canada’s international relations, national defence and/or national security.”
Federal Court Justice Patrick Gleeson refused and instead agreed to put in measures to protect witnesses’ identities from disclosure.
CBC News also intervened in the case, arguing the government lawyers’ original request “would unjustifiably limit the open court principle and infringe upon the freedoms of expression and of the press.”
