Federal Court of Canada: Canadian in CAN Embassy in Sudan Entitled to Come Home

[GAP]

Ottawa need not pay legal bills of man stranded in Sudan, court rules
PAUL KORING From Monday's Globe and Mail July 6, 2008 at 6:36 PM EDT
Article Link

The government doesn't have to pay the legal bills for a Canadian citizen even if he is broke and holed up in Canada's embassy in Khartoum, a Federal Court judge has ruled.

Abousfian Abdelrazik, once fingered as an al-Qaeda operative by Canadian security agents and blacklisted by the United Nations as a suspected terrorist, has been given “temporary safe haven” in the embassy by the Harper government, which now says it wants him off the blacklist. But, that doesn't mean it should pay his legal bills, Madam Justice Anne Mactavish said Friday. She did, however, order Canadian diplomats not to read confidential papers sent by his lawyers nor to delay delivery of them.

The judge suggested Islamic groups, Mr. Abdelrazik's family or perhaps Amnesty International Canada should pick up the tab for his legal efforts to force the government to issue him a new passport and bring him home.

“Suffice it to say that, at this juncture, there is at least a chance that Mr. Abdelrazik may be able to obtain an exemption from the application of the United Nations al-Qaida and Taliban Regulations so as to allow his supporters to assist him with his legal expenses,” Judge Mactavish wrote.


Abousfian Abdelrazik has been granted 'temporary safe haven' in the Canadian embassy in Khartoum. (Passport Photo)

Related Articles
Recent

Canadian languishes in embassy in Sudan 
From the archives

Ottawa cites UN watch list for stranding of Canadian in Sudan 
Canadians knew of his torture, Abdelrazik says 
Trying to get off the UN's terrorist list described as 'Kafkaesque' 
Abdelrazik sues Ottawa to bring him home 
Bring home Canadian from Sudan, Ottawa told 
Ottawa wants terrorism suspect taken off watch list 
Holed up in embassy, a citizen's fate in limbo 
Internet Links
Timeline: Exiled in Sudan
Affidavit: Abousfian Abdelrazik's torture claim 
The UN rules don't make clear whether paying his legal bills amounts to illegally aiding a blacklisted person. Mr. Abdelrazik, who has never been charged with any crime and denies any links to terrorist or extremist groups, can't return to his family in Montreal. He remains on international and Canadian “no-fly” lists because some unidentified country – likely the United States or France – blocked Canada's effort to have him removed from the UN Security Council al-Qaeda blacklist.

Getting blacklisted on the so-called 1267 list, named for the UN Security Council Resolution originally co-sponsored by Canada, is easy. Any UN-member country can finger a suspect. Getting off is almost impossible and once listed all UN countries are required to seize the assets of any individual and enforce a travel ban, although returning home is explicitly permitted.

Yavar Hameed, an Ottawa lawyer, has been working on Mr. Abdelrazik's case since last year but told the court that he can't afford to keep working for nothing. He was seeking an order requiring the government to pick up the costs of the litigation.

Although the judge refused to order the government to pay the legal bills, the larger issue of whether the government will be ordered to repatriate Mr. Abdelrazik has yet to be decided.

For more than two months, Mr. Abdelrazik has been living inside the Canadian embassy in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum while the government decides whether to fly him home.

Judge Mactavish did issue an order requiring Canadian diplomats to cease interfering with communication between Mr. Abdelrazik and his lawyers, forbidding diplomats from intercepting and reading such communications.
More on link

 

[The Bread Guy]

Remember this chap?
http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/77857.0.html

This, from today's Federal Court decision (.pdf) by The Honourable Mr. Justice Zinn:

I find that Mr. Abdelrazik’s Charter right to enter Canada has been breached by the
respondents. I do not find that Canada has engaged in a course of conduct and inaction that
amounts to “procrastination, evasiveness, obfuscation and general bad faith.” I do find, however,
there has been a course of conduct and individual acts that constitute a breach of Mr. Abdelrazik’s
rights which the respondents have failed to justify. I find that Mr. Abdelrazik is entitled to an
appropriate remedy which, in the unique circumstances of his situation, requires that the Canadian
government take immediate action so that Mr. Abdelrazik is returned to Canada. Furthermore, as a
consequence of the facts found establishing the breach and the unique circumstances of Mr.
Abdelrazik’s circumstances, the remedy requires that this Court retain jurisdiction to ensure that Mr.
Abdelrazik is returned to Canada.

 

[Yrys]

Court orders government to let Abdelrazik return, CTV (the comments are still open now)

CTV.ca News Staff

A Montreal man who has been stranded in Khartoum, Sudan, must be allowed to return
home to Canada, a judge ruled on Thursday.

Federal Court Justice Russel Zinn said Abousfian Abdelrazik's constitutional rights were
breached when he was banned from returning home. Zinn said the federal government
must make arrangements within 30 days for Abdelrazik to return to Canada, and he wants
to be kept up to date on the government's progress.

Abdelrazik, a Canadian with family in Montreal, has been trapped in Sudan for six years
after he returned to visit his ailing mother in 2003. While in Sudan, Abdelrazik was arrested
on suspected terrorism ties, but was released without being charged and was eventually
cleared by the RCMP and CSIS of any wrongdoing. However, Abdelrazik's Canadian passport
was seized and never returned, and he was not allowed to return home. He eventually sought
shelter at the Canadian embassy in Khartoum, where he has lived for about a year.

Embassy staff have been providing him with food and he is sleeping on a cot in the building's
gym.

CTV's Roger Smith spoke with one of Abdelrazik's lawyers, who said the legal team was thrilled
with the ruling. However, he said the government could still appeal the decision. "There are no
guarantees Mr. Abdelrazik will be brought home," Smith told CTV News Channel. "The government
was ordered to bring Omar Khadr back to Canada from Guantanamo Bay but the government
appealed that decision."

Abdelrazik has held Canadian citizenship since 1995.

A recent report has suggested that it was CSIS who asked for Abdelrazik to be detained by Sudanese
authorities in 2003. Back then, authorities claimed Abdelrazik held ties to Osama bin Laden.

 

[George Wallace]

Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act.  (Title is link to article and video.)

Ottawa will allow Abdelrazik to return to Canada



18/06/2009 5:19:51 PM


The federal government will comply with a Federal Court order to allow the return of Montrealer Abousfian Abdelrazik, who has been stranded in Sudan for six years after being labelled an al-Qaeda suspect, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said Thursday.

Abdelrazik, 47, was arrested and detained while visiting his mother in Sudan in 2003 and for the last year has been living in the Canadian Embassy in Khartoum.

Earlier this month, Federal Court Justice Russell Zinn ordered the Canadian government to fly him home early next month and provide those travel plans by Friday.

Nicholson initially said the government would need time to review Zinn's decision before deciding whether it would appeal, despite intense calls from opposition members and Abdelrazik's supporters to allow him to return.

But in his response to a question Thursday from Liberal MP Irwin Cotler in the House of Commons about the status of Abdelrazik, Nicholson said, "The government will comply with the court order."

A spokeswoman for the Foreign Affairs department said it had nothing to add to Nicholson's statement.

No date set yet for return: lawyer

Following Nicholson's announcement, Abdelrazik's lawyer, Khalid Elgazzar, told CBC News his legal team has received written confirmation from the government that Abdelrazik will return to Canada, but could not immediately disclose a travel date.

"They've given us an initial indication as to a commitment to bring him back, and I guess the logistical factors are how that's going to happen," he said in an interview from Ottawa.

Elgazzar said he contacted Abdelrazik to inform him of the government's decision and his client "had some difficulty containing his happiness."

Both the RCMP and Canadian Security Intelligence Service have cleared Abdelrazik of any terrorist connections, but the Conservative government had refused to issue him travel documents to return home because his name was on a UN Security Council list banning travel for terrorist suspects.

Rae urges Tories to accept court's Khadr decision

His lawyers successfully argued the government has violated his right to mobility under Section 6 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

In his decision, Zinn wrote that Abdelrazik is a "prisoner in a foreign land" and "as much a victim of international terrorism as the innocent persons whose lives have been taken by recent barbaric acts of terrorists."

The judge said the government's claim that Abdelrazik couldn't fly to Canada due to his inclusion on the UN blacklist was actually "no impediment" to his repatriation.

Zinn also said CSIS was "complicit" in Abdelrazik's detention by Sudanese authorities six years ago.

Liberal foreign affairs critic Bob Rae said the government's decision also raises the question of why the Conservatives are not abiding another Federal Court decision calling on Ottawa to press for the return of Omar Khadr, the last Western citizen imprisoned at the U.S. detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"The judge's decision in Abdelrazik was very clear, but I would add that the judge's decision in Mr. Khadr's case is very clear as well, and I would hope that the government would now turn and accept the decision in Mr. Khadr's case," Rae said Thursday.

The government announced in May it was appealing the court's ruling on the Toronto-born Khadr's case.

Khadr, now 22, has been at the Guantanamo Bay facility since 2002 when he was picked up by U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan. He's alleged to have thrown a grenade that killed an American soldier during a battle.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Bumped to include latest:

Abousfian Abdelrazik, the Canadian citizen labelled a national-security risk by the Harper government and kept in forced exile for years, was taken off the UN Security Council terrorist blacklist Wednesday, ending his nearly decade-long ordeal.

On being told of the delisting, Mr. Abdelrazik “shouted for joy, and then he wept,” his lawyer, Paul Champ, said. “You could hear his children cheering and clapping,” at their home in Montreal.

The delisting removes the stain of being labelled an al-Qaeda operative in the secretive UN process and vindicates Mr. Abdelrazik’s long-standing assertion that he was never a jihadist, nor the paymaster, plotter or terror-cell leader as portrayed by the United States and echoed by Canadian agencies.

The removal from the UN’s 1267 terrorist blacklist represents a second significant victory for Mr. Abdelrazik. The first was his return to Canada after a federal court in 2009 ruled that the government had trampled his constitutional rights and said Canadian Security and Intelligence Service agents were complicit in his imprisonment abroad. The government still refused to pay for his return, leaving ordinary citizens to buy the airline ticket ....

Globe & Mail, 30 Nov 11

 

[The Bread Guy]

Holy necro-thread Bat Man! The latest ...

Crown wants closed-door hearings in lawsuit of Canadian who was detained in Sudan

OTTAWA - The Crown wants at least six current and former security officials to testify behind closed doors in the lawsuit of a Montreal man who was detained in Sudan

www.thecanadianpressnews.ca

Bit of backstory on this guy - usual Wikipedia caveats apply

Abousfian Abdelrazik - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org