Mohamed Harkat (merged thread)

[Yrys]

CSIS taping conversations between lawyers, terrorism suspects, judge says

Canada's spy agency is taping conversations between men held as terrorism
suspects and their defence lawyers, according to a Federal Court Judge, who
suggests state agents cease such wiretaps and delete the tapes.

Madame Justice Carolyn Layden-Stevenson's written summary of secret
evidence released Thursday left defence lawyers saying they were “apoplectic”
with rage that hundreds of their conversations had been snooped on, and that
one of the most basic and fundamental legal protections, solicitor-client privilege,
is being flouted by the government.

Reviewing the case of an Egyptian living under house arrest because he once
ran a farming operation for Osama bin Laden, Judge Layden-Stevenson released
a summary of secret testimony given by a Canadian Security Intelligence Service
agent.

The testimony revealed just how CSIS is helping another federal agency keep
tabs on the “security-certificate” detainee, Mohammad Zeki Mahjoub. “The CSIS
analyst … listens to all intercepted communications, including solicitor-client
communications, if any, to the extent of being satisfied that the communication
does not involve a potential breach of the terms of release of a threat to
national-security,” the judge's summary reads.

Mr. Mahjoub consented to wiretapping in order to get released from six years
of jail to house arrest in 2006. But lawyers say there was an implicit understanding
that conversations with lawyers – a basic right protected for hundreds of years –
would not be recorded.

That basic right should have been clear to the government, they say. “I feel like
my house has been broken into, it's incredibly invasive,” said Barbara Jackman,
a lawyer for Mr. Mahjoub. Co-counsel Marlys Edwardh said she explicitly began e
very phone call to Mr. Mahjoub by immediately identifying herself as his lawyer,
which she felt was an overt signal for spies to turn off their tape recorders.

The lawyers said they now feel that hundreds of their conversations were overheard,
they don't know how they'll next be able to communicate with their client after a court
hearing ends Thursday. They said it's possible that any conversation with Mr. Mahjoub
will be used against him, by any number of a host of security agencies.

Similar concerns have been raised in the another case, that of Mohamed Harkat, an
Algerian security-certificate detainee living in Ottawa.

In more typical cases, CSIS and police seek judges to endorse warrants to allow
for any wiretapping and only can listen to conversations with lawyers under the
most extreme circumstances. But the cases at hand are not typical. The Canadian
government has branded five Muslim immigrants as potential al-Qaeda agents,
under the security certificate law that allows for indefinite jailing or monitoring
so long as they are in the country.

While the Canada Border Services Agency is in charge of monitoring the suspects,
CSIS is lending the border guards expertise in wiretapping. Until today, government
lawyers fought to keep that precise CBSA-CSIS relationship a secret.

The highly controversial security-certificate process also allows for secret hearings.
Judge Layden-Stevenson released the summary of the CSIS evidence a day after a
unnamed senior agent testified in camera. Her summary suggests the release
order be amended so that government agents delete tapes and cease listening
in on such conversations.

 

[zipperhead_cop]

More judicial jackassery:

Court orders Canadian spy agency to reveal secret source

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/090527/canada/canada_justice_attacks

OTTAWA (AFP) - A federal court ordered Canada's spy service on Wednesday to disclose evidence that calls into question the reliability of a key source in the case of an alleged Al-Qaeda sleeper agent.

Judge Simon Noel ruled that information on the informant must be provided to lawyers of Mohamed Harkat who is accused of being a terrorist, even though this would reveal to them the identity of the source.

The existence of the new information came in a top secret letter from government lawyers to Noel earlier this week, court documents indicated.

Disclosures in the letter "raise questions as to the compliance of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) with orders of this court," the judge said in his decision.

He also expressed concern about "possible prevarication by CSIS witnesses called to testify concerning the reliability of the information provided by the human source, and CSIS's compliance with the obligation of utmost good faith" in the case.

The ruling delayed a hearing set to start on Monday to determine the soundness of security concerns that lead to Harkat's arrest. The hearing would be "temporarily adjourned," the judge said.

The CSIS suspects Algerian-born Harkat of having trained in a terrorist camp in Afghanistan and of belonging to an Al-Qaeda sleeper cell. Harkat has denied the allegations.

After he was granted refugee status when he arrived in Canada in 1997, he was arrested in December 2002 at his Ottawa apartment under a legal measure authorizing the expulsion or imprisonment of Canadian residents or immigrants suspected of posing a threat to national security.

He was released in June 2006 under strict bail conditions, which include electronic monitoring.

Thank you "your honour".  Thank you for trying to make life easier for someone known to be trying to destroy our country.  Thank you for undermining the entire confidential informant process which will have repercussions throughout every level and area of any type of enforcement that uses CI's.  Thank you for feeling you are so very more important that the entire enforcement community that you think you can get a guy killed for cooperating with the authorities. 
Thank you, Judge Simon Noel, for bringing Canada one step closer to its own 9/11.

 

[Edward Campbell]

And some not so good news, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Ottawa Citizen:

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Judge+dramatically+eases+restrictions+Harkat/2016155/story.html

Judge dramatically eases restrictions on Harkat
Ottawa terror suspect jubilant, vows to clear name

By Chris Cobb, The Ottawa Citizen

September 21, 2009

OTTAWA-Tears of joy and relief poured down Mohamed Harkat’s cheeks Monday as he heard a Federal Court judge lift the strictest of bail conditions the accused terrorist has been living under since being released from jail three years ago.

“It’s impossible to overestimate what a significant change this will have on his life,” said Harkat’s lawyer Norm Boxall. “It gives them freedom where previously they had none. He couldn’t go into his backyard without being supervised. You can’t imagine what it’s like to live for years under these kind of restraints and suddenly to be freed from them.”

The decision, and extent of the government concessions, clearly surprised Harkat, his wife Sophie and the family’s supporters, who packed the courtroom to hear what was expected to be a comparatively routine application by Harkat’s lawyers for an easing of the bail order.

But government lawyers pre-empted the hearing with the shock announcement to Federal Court Justice Simon Noël that they would not object to the lifting of 24-hour surveillance outside the Harkat home by Canada Border Services agents and nor would they object to the Algerian-born Harkat travelling alone within the borders of the capital region.

It appears to be a significant retreat by the government in a case conducted largely in secret.

Prior to Monday’s decision, the former pizza deliveryman had a strict curfew and was not allowed to leave his house unaccompanied. His phone was tapped and he was not allowed to read his own mail without it first being vetted by security agents.

Surveillance cameras inside and outside the Harkat house also monitored his movements.

A beaming Harkat left the Supreme Court building, where the Federal Court is housed, to the rousing cheers and applause of his family and friends and emerged into the bright late morning sunshine to say that the ruling came as a huge relief.

“I feel good,” he said. “This will affect all things. I am always worried about accidentally breaking conditions. There were too many conditions to remember. It was hard to think normal. It was like being on another planet.

“I still don’t know why I was arrested,” he added. “I want to clear my name. That’s what we’re fighting for.”

Under Monday’s ruling, Harkat must continue to live with a GPS security ankle bracelet and continues to be barred from using a computer or a cellphone or a landline phone at any location other than his own home.

He had previously been barred from using any type of telephone.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) contends that 42-year-old Harkat is an al-Qaeda sleeper agent. The federal government is using the secretive security certificate process in an effort to deport him to his native Algeria.

Harkat came to Canada and applied for refugee status in 1995 after five years living in Pakistan, where he said he worked as a warehouse manager for the Muslim World League.

CSIS alleges that he travelled to Afghanistan in the early 1990s and developed a relationship with al-Qaeda lieutenant Abu Zubaydah, who ran two terrorist camps.

Harkat denies all the allegations and the government has used federal security legislation to keep secret whatever evidence it has.

Defence lawyer Boxall said Monday that he didn’t know why the government had changed its position on the bail restrictions but speculated it might be rooted in a revelation that a key CSIS source in the case had failed a lie-detector test.

A top-secret letter made public June 5 showed that CSIS had left Judge Noël with a distorted impression of the informant’s reliability and in a separate letter to the court senior CSIS legal counsel Michael Duffy said the agency’s lack of total honesty was “inexcusable” and “of profound concern to the service.

“It belies the commitment of the service and its employees to the judicial process,” wrote Duffy.

The government won’t say why it has changed its position but Boxall said he assumes CSIS has conducted a new risk assessment on Harkat.

“They have come to the conclusion that Mr. Harkat is not the risk that they thought,” said Boxall, “which is what we’ve always believed. This might suggest that their case is getting weaker but we don’t know.”

While a radical change for the better, the remaining conditions should also be lifted, added Boxall, because they still make it almost impossible for Harkat to find employment.

The battery-operated GPS system on Harkat’s right ankle needs charging for two hours a day and requires him to lie motionless during the recharging process.

“I bet every one of you has a cellphone,” said Boxall during an impromptu news conference. “They are everyday tools. Cells and computers are pretty much part of any employment in 2009. He hasn’t seen a computer screen since 2002.”

Harkat spent 31⁄2 years in jail after being arrested in December 2002. He was released almost three years ago after agreeing to 18 bail conditions that amounted to ultra-strict house arrest.

Those conditions allowed the government to raid Harkat’s house without warning, which is what 13 of its security agents, along with Ottawa police officers and sniffer dogs, did last May.

The controversial six-hour raid came three weeks before a rare public hearing in the case to determine whether the government’s security certificate against Harkat was reasonable.

That hearing is delayed until January next year because of the raid and because of concerns around CSIS’s handling of the case.

The agents took dozens of boxes of items from the house and seized Sophie’s computer, which was kept in the basement, an area Harkat is barred from entering.

The raid and its timing clearly irritated Noël, who amended Harkat’s bail conditions requiring government agents to get the equivalent of a search warrant prior to any other raid.

Harkat said he is looking forward to his new freedom.

He said his first act, as a relatively free man, would be to honour a promise to his 10-year-old niece Gabrielle Brunette and take her to dinner.

Asked where she wanted her uncle to take her, Gabrielle said she didn’t really care.

“We can go to Home Depot if he wants,” she said, threading her arm through Harkat’s.

Harkat’s wife, prime surety and former court-ordered chaperone Sophie, was more emphatic.

“I’m alone tonight,” she laughed, “I’m going to go party.”

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen​

It appears, to me, that CSIS continues to believes that Harkat is a still a threat but the requirements of national security and the requirements of justice and the law cannot be reconciled. So, I assume he will be kept under more distant surveillance  - until, I guess he makes a mistake and compromises himself or CSIS concludes that he is too far “out of contact” to remain as a threat.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Canadian judges are being appropriately cautious according to this news story, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail web site:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/judge-says-no-to-terror-suspects-bid-for-cellphone-access/article1315331/

Judge says no to terror suspect's bid for cellphone access
A federal judge has denied a request from terror suspect Mohamed Harkat to further loosen his bail conditions - with one exception

Ottawa
The Canadian Press

Wednesday, Oct. 07, 2009

A federal judge has denied a request from terror suspect Mohamed Harkat to further loosen his bail conditions – with one exception.

Mr. Harkat will be allowed to travel outside the national capital region to places in Ontario and Quebec if details can be worked out with federal officials.

In a ruling released today, Justice Simon Noel said it was too early to consider Mr. Harkat's other demands, given that the substance of his case has yet to be heard.

Among other things, Mr. Harkat requested removal of the electronic monitoring bracelet on his ankle, permission to have a cell phone and more freedom to use a computer.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service alleges Mr. Harkat is involved with the al-Qaeda terror network – a claim he denies.

Last month the court did ease bail conditions considerably, meaning no more surveillance cameras in Mr. Harkat's Ottawa home, no need to approve visitors and no further interception of mail and phone calls.

The government has been trying to deport the Algerian-born Mr. Harkat using a national security certificate, a rarely employed immigration tool, since his December 2002 arrest.

He and four other men face removal from Canada under certificates. All are fighting to remain in the country.

This is modestly good news.

 

[mellian]

From what I can tell, especially Harkat whose case I am more familiar with, they tried to immigrate. Just that the process can take while, and unable to return where they are from to wait, both in fear of getting persecuted and because what they had to do to get to Canada in the first place.

If one is the run from authorities from home for whatever reason, it becomes lot harder to get to Canada legally, let alone start immigration process outside of Canada. So the alternative is unfortunately find shady ways of get there, which can result needing to contact people security agencies around the world do not like and consider security threats.

So some folks get issued security certificates and arrested for nearly a decade of their lives simply because they were in contact with some bad folks even if it was only once and very brief?

 

[Edward Campbell]

...
So some folks get issued security certificates and arrested for nearly a decade of their lives simply because they were in contact with some bad folks even if it was only once and very brief?

Yes.

It might be that "we" are erring on the side of caution, but it IS national security, our national security and "we" are entitled, indeed duty bound, as citizens, to protect our country.


Edit: grammar   :-[

 

[zipperhead_cop]

They aren't just useless at street level either:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/federal-court-quashes-a-second-security-certificate/article1400563/

Federal Court quashes a second security certificate
Ruling another blow to controversial certificate system

New disclosure obligations set out by the Supreme Court of Canada have played a key part in the collapse of a federal security certificate case against a second terrorism suspect.

In quashing the certificate against the Syrian-born Toronto resident Hassan Almrei, a Federal Court judge said yesterday that the material the Canadian Security Intelligence Service disclosed to the court under the new rules contradicted information from its informants.

In his ruling, Mr. Justice Richard Mosley also said CSIS filed outdated, unreliable information about how al-Qaeda operates.

The ruling is the latest blow to the controversial certificate system, which relies on evidence heard in secret to detain and deport foreign residents.

"This decision proves this process is a flawed process," said Mr. Almrei's lawyer, Lorne Waldman. The new rules have helped, he said, but "I still don't believe it is a fair process."

Mr. Almrei is a former mujahed who went to Afghanistan in the 1990s. His arrest in 2001 was justified, but he's no longer a security threat, Judge Mosley wrote.
In September, Moroccan-born Montreal resident Adil Charkaoui was cleared after the government withdrew its certificate evidence against him rather than subject it to scrutiny.

Mr. Charkaoui was the plaintiff in the 2008 top court ruling known as Charkaoui II, which requires that CSIS retain and disclose all relevant information to the judge in a security certificate case.

That case is expected to be pivotal in the three remaining certificate cases against men suspected of being Islamic terrorists.

Norman Boxall, a lawyer for another certificate suspect, Mohamed Harkat, called the Charkaoui II decision important.

"Like Almrei, there has also been disclosure in Harkat raising serious issues with confidential informants," he said.

Barbara Jackman, who represents certificate suspects Mohamed Mahjoub and Mahmoud Jaballah, said Charkaoui II resulted in greater disclosure than 10 years of previous legal wrangling did.

In an interview with The Canadian Press this weekend, Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan said he would review the embattled certificate system.

"I'm taking a serious look at it, trying to work our way through what the implications of the court decisions are and how we can balance that with our ... national security," he said.

In his ruling, Judge Mosley said there were grounds to be suspicious of Mr. Almrei because he had been to Afghanistan, had arrived in Canada on a bogus passport and gave a forged passport to an Arab Afghan.

"Almrei was at the very least an opportunist willing, for a suitable fee, to violate Canada's laws," the judge said.

But as CSIS was compelled to release more evidence, "surveillance and intercept reports ... contradicted human source reports," Judge Mosley wrote.

Also, CSIS had to tell the court that one informant failed a polygraph test while a second one didn't undergo the lie detector that the agency said he had.

CSIS's credibility was further hurt by closed-door cross-examinations by court-appointed advocates, a role created after another Supreme Court ruling that Mr. Charkaoui, Mr. Almrei and Mr. Harkat won in 2007.

Mr. Waldman said the government made a mistake in using a security certificate rather than charging Mr. Almrei with lesser criminal offences in 2001. He is unlikely to be deported to Syria because of the likelihood that he would be tortured there.

Yeah, we all know that terrorists usually just get bored and give up on the whole jihad thing.  I don't suppose that when a major terrorist strike finally does happen we could be so lucky that it happens at the Supreme Court in Ottawa?  (with no innocent casualties)
I truly believe that is what the judiciary wants.  A body count. 
And now we are stuck with this arsehole because he MIGHT be tortured if we send him back.

 

[old medic]

Judge says grounds to declare Harkat security threat
The Canadian Press
Date: Thursday Dec. 9, 2010 10:17 AM ET
Copy at: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20101209/judge-grounds-harkat-threat-security-101209/

OTTAWA — A federal judge says there are reasonable grounds to believe Algerian-born Mohamed Harkat is a threat to national security.

Federal Court Justice Simon Noel's decision in the long-running case could pave the way for Harkat's deportation to his native country.

In a separate ruling, Noel upheld the constitutionality of the national security certificate system the government is using to remove Harkat from Canada.

Harkat, a 42-year-old former gas bar attendant and pizza delivery man, was arrested eight years ago on suspicion of being an al-Qaida sleeper agent.

The federal government painted him as a calculating terrorist who consistently covered his tracks with lies.

Harkat, who lives in Ottawa with wife Sophie, denies any involvement with terrorism.

He says he's merely a refugee who fled strife-ridden Algeria and worked with an aid agency in Pakistan before his 1995 arrival in Canada using a false Saudi passport.

The case hit numerous snags and delays, including an earlier, successful constitutional challenge that forced the government to revamp the security certificate system -- a seldom-used means of removing suspected terrorists and spies.

The government reissued a certificate against Harkat in 2008. He says he will be tortured if returned to his homeland.

Noel weighed evidence heard behind closed doors and in open court before issuing his decision on the certificate's validity.

 

[George Wallace]

Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act.



Ottawa's Harkat a terrorist, faces deportation, court rules




By Andrew Duffy,
The Ottawa Citizen
December 9, 2010 11:06 AM

LINK

OTTAWA — Ottawa's Mohamed Harkat faces deportation to his native Algeria after a Federal Court judge branded him a member of the al-Qaeda terrorist network Thursday morning.

Justice Simon Noël ruled that two cabinet ministers made a reasonable decision in February 2008 when they concluded Harkat poses a threat to national security.

The federal government has been trying to deport Harkat since December 2002 when he was first arrested on the strength of a national security certificate.

Noël said Harkat lied on the witness stand when he denied any involvement in the terrorist network.

"He has surrounded himself in layers of clouds in which he does not let any light come through," Noël wrote. "At times, his testimony has been inconsistent, not only with his earlier statements, but also in comparison with the public and closed evidence presented by both parties.

"At times, his testimony was simply incoherent, implausible if not contradictory. The Ministers have provide sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the issuance of the certificate was reasonable."

The ruling means Harkat, 42, who has lived in Ottawa since September 1995, is under an automatic deportation order.

A federal immigration officer must now assess whether Harkat faces a significant risk of torture if returned to Algeria, the country from which he fled in 1990 as a political dissident.

Harkat has said that he will be tortured or killed if returned to that country.

The ruling represents a major victory for the federal government and its security-certificate law, which was designed to rid the country of foreign-born terrorists.

Harkat is the first terrorism suspect to have his security certificate upheld by the Federal Court since the new law was introduced in February 2008.

Two others, Adil Charkaoui and Hassan Almrei, have had their security certificates quashed and are now suing for millions in damages.

Security certificates give federal authorities the power to arrest, imprison and deport foreign-born terror suspects without revealing in public all of the evidence against them.

The process has foundered until now. In 2007, the Supreme Court ordered the government to redraw its security certificate legislation, but since then, intelligence dossiers have not stood up to the new system's increased level of scrutiny.

Harkat, an Ottawa pizza deliveryman and gas-station attendant, was first arrested on Dec. 10, 2002. He has always denied any connection to terrorism.

Noël, however, found that Harkat for at least 15 months operated a guest house in Pakistan for Ibn Khattab, a Chechen terrorist. The judge also concluded Harkat visited Afghanistan, contrary to his sworn testimony, and that he had links to an Islamic extremist group in Egypt, Al Gamaa Al Islamiya (AGAI).

What's more, the judge accepted evidence from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service that Harkat assisted two Islamic extremists in Canada and maintained links to al-Qaeda members Ahmed Said Khadr, a Canadian, and Abu Zubaydah, who is now held in Guantanamo Bay.

Noël said Harkat remains a threat to national security even though time has diminished the danger level associated with him.

The judge dismissed a constitutional challenge to the security certificate regime and an abuse of process application filed by Harkat's defence team.

This is the second time that a security certificate has been upheld in the Harkat case.

In March 2005, Justice Eleanor Dawson found it was reasonable for the government to conclude Harkat was an al-Qaeda terrorist. That decision was overturned by the Supreme Court when it ruled the security-certificate process was too secretive.

A second certificate was issued against Harkat in February, 2008.

Judge Noël began hearing evidence in the case later that same year, both in camera and in public. He was presented with a significantly different case from the one heard by Dawson.

Harkat testified that he came to Canada as a refugee in October 1995 after spending five years in Pakistan as an aid worker. He fled Algeria, he said, because of a crackdown on the political party to which he belonged, the Front Islamique du Salut (FIS).

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) contends Harkat developed terrorist ties in Pakistan.

According to CSIS, Harkat worked as a chauffeur and errand boy at a Peshawar guest house run by Saudi-born jihadist Ibn Khattab. The spy agency also alleges Harkat did work for Ahmed Said Khadr, a Canadian member of al-Qaeda, while in Pakistan.

In Ottawa, CSIS claims, Harkat helped facilitate the movement of money and people in the bin Laden network.

CSIS presented court with transcripts from 13 telephone conversations, intercepted between September 1996 and September 1998, to demonstrate that Harkat maintained links to Khattab, Khadr and Abu Messab Al Shehre, a Saudi deported from Canada after being stopped at the Ottawa airport with a garrote, a samurai sword and a balaclava.

Harkat's defence team argued that the evidence could not be relied upon since CSIS destroyed the original tapes. Lawyer Norm Boxall said Harkat was targeted because of the fear that permeated North American after 9-11 and suggested CSIS created the concept of a "sleeper agent" to explain why Harkat lived peacefully in Canada for seven years before his arrest.

[email protected]

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen





==============================================

Exclusive: Harkat knew al-Qaeda lieutenant, files say

Harkat denies all terrorist ties

Analysis: How terror came home to roost

CSIS tapped phone despite order

Harkat helped with logistics, but wasn't in terror cell: CSIS agent

Mohamed Harkat background stories

 

[The Bread Guy]

Summary from Fed Ct of Canada attached - here's links to the individual decisions:
- DES-5-08 Decision on Abuse of Process (PDF)
- DES-5-08 Decision on Constitutional Question (PDF)
- DES-5-08 Decision on Reasonableness of Certificate (PDF)

 

[krustyrl]

I say .........."  BOOT"...and take Khadr(s) with him.!          :yellow:

 

[The Bread Guy]

....thanks to a Federal Court decision today:
- DES-5-08 – Release of Redacted Top Secret Material
- DES-5-08 – Footnotes
- DES-5-08 – Annex

 

[mariomike]

I did a search for "Todd Baylis". Although an old thread, I am sure many will remember the murder of this officer. This seems to be the relevant place for an update. It is hard to believe 17 years have passed:
http://forums.milnet.ca/forums/threads/39348/post-395909.html#msg395909
"In 1994, a gunman ordered deported to Jamaica stayed here long enough to shoot dead Toronto Police Constable Todd Baylis. Then, in a similar slaying, Torontonian Vivi Leimonis was gunned down during a robbery in a cafe called Just Desserts."

Update June 04, 2011:
"Immigration Department settles multimillion-dollar lawsuit 17 years after Toronto police officers shot: Seventeen years after a Jamaica-born career criminal awaiting deportation fatally shot one Toronto police constable and badly wounded a second, the federal Immigration Department has acknowledged its failings in the tragedy by settling a multimillion-dollar lawsuit filed on behalf of the families of the two officers.":
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/immigration-department-settles-multimillion-dollar-lawsuit-17-years-after-toronto-police-officers-shot/article2047254/

Edit to add.
I was not looking up the Just Desserts murder, but it was mentioned in the next sentence. I found this: "The ITF was formed in June 1994 in response to the brutal homicide of Vivi Lemonis, a patron in a Toronto restaurant shot to death during a violent robbery. All four suspects were non-Canadians with serious criminal convictions in Canada and some were under deportation orders. The second catalyst was the fatal shooting of Toronto Police Service Constable Todd Baylis and the wounding of his partner Constable Mike Leone in June 1994.":
http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/on/prog-serv/itf-gti-eng.htm

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Gayle was a POS when he was at my old jail and I'm sure he's even a bigger POS now................aren't we all glad that we are paying for his cable TV, school courses, etc?

Where's the gallows?

 

[mariomike]

Gayle was a POS when he was at my old jail and I'm sure he's even a bigger POS now................aren't we all glad that we are paying for his cable TV, school courses, etc?

Officer Baylis was taken to Sunnybrook. TPS took his partner to Humber Memorial. I wasn't there, but from what I was told, by the time the second ambulance arrived to take Gayle to St. Mikes, the mob was screaming nasty words because he was left for last.

 

[CougarKing]

The issue of security certificates again in the news...

Mods, please keep this separate from the "They Walk Among Us" thread.

If there is evidence that he had run a terrorism safe house in Pakistan as a teen, he should be deported.

CBC

Mohamed Harkat security certificate upheld by Supreme Court

The Supreme Court of Canada has upheld the national security certificate against terror suspect Mohamed Harkat, rejecting his constitutional challenge.

The top court decision released Wednesday says the legal process used to detain the Ottawa resident for years was fair and reasonable.

The decision means the government can move to deport Harkat, who has argued he faces torture or even death if he returns to Algeria. The matter of his deportation will be handled by immigration and public security officials.

Harkat, a former pizza delivery man, was born in Algeria, came to Canada in 1995 and was granted refugee status in 1997. He married a Canadian citizen, Sophie Lamarche, who has become an advocate for his cause.

Harkat was arrested in 2002 and accused of being an al-Qaeda sleeper agent. He spent four years in custody, and seven more years under house arrest. Harkat was detained without a trial under the provisions of a security certificate.

(...EDITED)

 

[The Bread Guy]

And if you're interested, here's the Supremes' decision attached (86 pages).

 

[Edward Campbell]

Slightly  ff topic: but related, just enough, I think to avoid starting yet another new thread.

This story, from CBC News about genuine Canadian passports which are fraudulently obtained, shows how easy it is for dangerous people to "walk among us."

----------​

          As a general rule I favour protecting the individual against the state and so I am always suspicious of "star chamber" type proceeding where an individual's right to see all the evidence, etc, is circumscribed.
          But: I accept that, sometimes, the state, the collective, the Great Big We needs extraordinary measures to protect us from individuals and small groups who mean us harm.

----------​

The terrorist, like other criminals, needs to "walk among us," to be, as Mao suggested, a fish who swims, essentially invisibly, in a sea of other people, and we need to make that harder and harder to do.

Security Certificates, problem laden (for civil libertarians) though they are, are one part of the solution; a more vigilant passport control system appears to be another. Kudos to the RCMP for catching this.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Been a while

Bumping with the very latest (archive link to NatPost article also here) ....

Accused al-Qaida sleeper agent Mohamed Harkat wins another chance at staying in Canada

Mohamed Harkat's arrest in 2002 sparked an enormous legal fight that has been running up and down in Canada’s highest courts ever since.

nationalpost.com

Mohamed Harkat, facing deportation, wins round in bid to stay in Canada

OTTAWA — Algerian-born Mohamed Harkat has won a round in his long-running legal battle to remain in Canada. In a ruling issued Thursday, Federal Court Justice John Norris says a 2018 government decision that Harkat should not be allowed to stay is unreasonable. Norris says a key finding — that...

halifax.citynews.ca

... and a quick AI-generated summary of what's been up since the last post here:

Mohamed Harkat is an Algerian-born Canadian permanent resident who has fought Canada’s attempt to remove him for more than 20 years under the security-certificate process. The government says he had ties to al-Qaeda-related activity; he denies the allegations and has never been criminally convicted in Canada.

Brief history: Canada issued a security certificate against Harkat in 2002, detained him, and later released him under strict conditions. The case has long turned on secret evidence, which made it difficult for him to fully challenge the government’s claims.

Court proceedings: In 2014, the Supreme Court upheld the security-certificate regime and left Harkat’s certificate in place. That kept the deportation process alive, even though the Court acknowledged the system was an imperfect substitute for full disclosure.

Since 2014: After 2014, the case focused on whether Canada could lawfully remove him and whether later decisions were reasonable. In 2018, a federal decision-maker said he should not remain in Canada, but on June 4, 2026, the Federal Court set that decision aside and sent it back for reconsideration by a new decision-maker.

 

[brihard]

Looks like another case of an administrative decision maker failing to show their work… These guys need writing classes.