Original author: Andrew Duffy Source: The Ottawa Citizen URL: [link] (subscribers only) Date: March 17, 2005
Measure indicates jurist taking terrorist hearing 'very seriously:' lawyer

A federal court judge will sit in a closed courtroom today to again hear secret testimony in the case of accused Ottawa terrorist Mohamed Harkat. It is the second time since the end of the public hearing in December that Judge Eleanor Dawson has recalled federal government witnesses to ask more questions of them. Mr. Harkat and his lawyer, Paul Copeland, have not been told who the witnesses are or what questions are being put to them."I don't know what it means except that the judge is taking her task very seriously," said Mr. Copeland.

It's possible that new evidence will emerge in the secret hearings, but Mr. Harkat will not be there to hear it. Mr. Copeland said he's worried he won't have a chance to rebut such evidence before Judge Dawson decides if his client is a threat to national security.

Mr. Harkat's wife, Sophie, said yesterday she was pleased to hear the judge wants more information.

"It shows the judge still has unanswered questions. I think it's a good sign."

She said the three-month wait for a verdict has been the most trying part of the ordeal, which began more than two years ago with her husband's arrest on a security certificate.

"I sleep only three or four hours a night.

"I've been putting my life on hold for three months because I don't want to be doing something else when the verdict comes down. Every time the phone rings early in the morning, I think today is the day. But so far, no."

Her husband has also found the wait extremely difficult, she said.

"He just doesn't care about anything anymore. All he wants is a decision," said Ms. Harkat, who visits her husband regularly in the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre.

Security certificates give the federal government the power to detain foreign-born terrorist suspects based on secret evidence.

They can be deported if a judge, after reviewing that evidence in secret, finds the government made a reasonable decision by issuing a certificate.

In Mr. Harkat's case, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service believes he is a sleeper agent with ties to senior al-Qaeda officials.

The most serious allegation against Mr. Harkat is that he formed an association with Abu Zubaydah, a top al-Qaeda lieutenant. CSIS claims Mr. Harkat, while supposedly working at a Muslim charity in Pakistan in the early 1990s, operated a guesthouse for jihadis travelling to Chechnya.

The spy agency also claims Mr. Harkat travelled to Afghanistan and met Mr. Zubaydah, who was once third on the U.S. list of most-wanted al-Qaeda suspects, behind Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri.

In his testimony, Mr. Harkat flatly denied ever travelling to Afghanistan, having any connection to Mr. Zubaydah or to the al-Qaeda terrorist network.

Mr. Harkat, 36, who won refugee status in Canada after arriving in 1995, worked as a pizza delivery man and gas station attendant. He met Sophie Lamarche at his gas station, and married her months later, on Jan. 2, 2001.

If the security certificate against Mr. Harkat is upheld, the government will then assess the risk he faces if deported to Algeria. Mr. Harkat claims he will be tortured or killed

if returned to his homeland where he's wanted as a political dissident.

But in two security certificate cases -- those involving Egyptians Mahmoud Jaballah and Mohamed Mahjoub -- government lawyers argued the men should be deported even though the government conceded the men face a substantial risk of torture.

(c) The Ottawa Citizen 2005