Mohamed Harkat Wednesday rejected a government assertion that his flight from Algeria in 1989 to Saudi Arabia to escape arrest was really part of an elaborate plan to become a jihadist.

Government lawyer David Tyndale, during cross-examination of the former Ottawa gas station attendant, suggested Harkat was never in danger in Algeria, but cooked up the escape plan as a cover for his Afghan adventure.

Harkat said it made no sense for him to quit university where he was studying to be an engineer, and give up a promising life. He insisted his was life in danger then, as, he said, it is now if he ends up in his homeland.

"I will get arrested and I will pay the price," he said.

The saga of the suspected terrorist began more than 20 years ago, when Harkat abandoned university and fled to Saudi Arabia. He says an uncle warned him that police in his hometown were after him for his membership in an Islamist party known by the acronym FIS.

Harkat had been recruited in high school by a teacher, and when he was leaving for university, gave the party permission to use his father's unoccupied house as an office. For that, he says he became a wanted man and had to flee to Saudi Arabia, where he hoped to continue his studies.

Unable to study on arrival in Saudi Arabia, and almost penniless, he told the court he quickly accepted a job with the World Muslim League, a Saudi charity, to run their warehouse in the Pakistani city of Peshawar. In 1995, after Pakistan ordered all Algerians to leave the country, he came to Canada as a refugee, using a fake Saudi passport. In 2002, he was detained under a security certificate after being declared a sleeper agent and national security threat.

On Wednesday, Tyndale called Harkat's story too good to be true. He noted the amazing coincidence of Harkat fleeing to Saudi Arabia, where he knew no one, but in less than two weeks was on a plane to Pakistan. He pointed to inconsistencies in Harkat's statements to Canadian immigration authorities and CSIS. But Harkat stuck to his fundamental assertion that he went to Pakistan out of necessity and never associated with extremists or terrorists while he was there.

Harkat's cross-examination continues today.

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