Abousfian Abdelrazik is a Sudanese born Canadian Citizen. He became a citizen after he came to Canada in 1990 and was granted refugee protection by this country in 1992. He has never been charged with any crime, in Canada or anywhere else.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) has been interested in Abdelrazik since at least 1999. Abdelrazik knew Ahmed Ressam the "Millennium Bomber" and testified at his trial. CSIS started "harassing" Abdelrazik some years before he returned to Sudan to visit his sick mother. There are reports that CSIS agents visited his sick wife (dying of cancer) in the hospital when Abdelrazik wasn't there; another incident where they refused to leave his home when he asked them to- only leaving when he called the police and they came. It would seem that CSIS was engaging in conspicuous disruption - an apparently acceptable security protocol. Unfortunately, this behavior was predicated on the unacceptable non-legal doctrine of "where there's smoke there's fire".
After the death of his wife in Montreal, Abdelrazik decided to visit his ailing mother back in Sudan in 2003. After he arrived in Sudan he was arrested by that country's notorious security service at the behest of CSIS. From September 2003 to July 2004 he was held and allegedly beaten/tortured by the Sudanese. It was during this time, while in Sudanese detention, that he was also interrogated by CSIS. According to Abdelrazik, CSIS agents told him that Sudan would be his "Guantanamo". They also told him that he would never see Canada again. Later that year, there was a flight arranged to bring him home; it was cancelled when CSIS agents discussed the matter with Transport Canada.
In July 2005 he was exonerated of allegations of involvement in terrorism by the Sudanese. He was again arrested, detained and beaten by the Sudanese from November 2005 to July 2006. After his release the second time, he was added to the UN 'blacklist', likely by the US; some days after he was designated as a terrorist by the US. After this, the Canadian government refused to issue him a passport or travel document precluding him from traveling commercially and returning to Canada. Both CSIS and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police wrote formal letters in 2007 to say they had no current files warranting keeping him on the UN terrorist list. Frustrated by Canada's intransigence to repatriate him, Somalian authorities threatened to make him "disappear". Canada did not respond to this overt threat to the life of one of its citizens. Due to safety concerns, Abdelrazik lived in the lobby of the Canadian Consulate in Khartoum for over a year; staying there until he was finally allowed to return to Canada more than a year later.
Abdelrazik's lawyers, on a pro-bono basis sought redress before the Federal Court. They challenged the government's failure to facilitate Abdelrazik's return to Canada. In June 2009, Justice Zinn ordered Abdelrazik's return. Justice Zinn found that Abdelrazik was "...as much a victim of international terrorism as the innocent persons whose lives have been taken by recent barbaric acts of terrorists".
The Globe and Mail stated, "In a toughly worded 107-page ruling, Judge Zinn pilloried the government's claims of trying to help Mr. Abdelrazik, concluded that Canadian anti-terrorism agents were implicated in his imprisonment in Sudan, denounced the UN terrorist blacklist as an affront to justice and basic human rights and slammed Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon for high-handedly ignoring due process of law"
Despite all their stubborn resolve to keep Abdelrazik out of Canada, the Conservative government finally acceded and agreed to bring a citizen back. This government spent more than $800,000 of the taxpayers money in a failed (and inappropriate) fight to keep a citizen from returning to his life in Canada. In Abdelrazik's case, Justice Zinn of the Federal Court of Canada found that CSIS was complicit in the detention of Mr. Abdelrazik by the Sudanese authorities. As an aside, prison conditions and the treatment of prisoners of Sudan make it likely that CSIS and Canadian authorities knew (or should have known) that Abdelrazik would be mistreated and tortured there.
I am not aware of the completion of any review of CSIS actions on the Abdelrazik matter. A review is essential -- sunlight is the best disinfectant and the murky role that CSIS played in this sad tale needs to be made clear. Abdelrazik was removed from the UN Security Council blacklist in November 2011 vindicating his claims that he was never involved in terrorism.
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