The case against Harkat, Part 1 of 2
Source: The Ottawa Citizen online
URL: http://tinyurl.com/4o58y (subscribers only)
Date: October 21, 2004
The following story originally appeared in the Citizen on Dec. 21, 2002.
Some time within the next few weeks, a Federal Court judge will review in secret the government's case against Ottawa's Mohamed Harkat.
Not even Mr. Harkat's lawyer will be allowed to view the detailed evidence that supports the allegations against him: that he is a member of an extremist network linked to terrorist kingpin Osama bin Laden.
But if the Federal Court judge finds that Mr. Harkat is a member of al-Qaeda, he will be inadmissible as a Canadian resident. He will be deported to his native Algeria and whatever fate awaits him there.
The future of the married 34-year-old pizza delivery man, who claimed refugee status in Canada in 1995, will turn on information that Canadians will never be allowed to view.
Given that fact, the Citizen today offers a close analysis of the government's case against Mr. Harkat. The assessment draws upon a 40-page brief filed by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), 1,000 pages of supporting documents and the Citizen's own interviews with some of the principals named in those files.
The picture that emerges certainly raises suspicion. Mr. Harkat's interviews with CSIS are laced with mistruths and half-truths. He said, for instance, that he has never been to Afghanistan. But his wife, Sophie Harkat, 28, told the Citizen this week Mr. Harkat had been to the country in the 1990s, when it was home to Mr. bin Laden and a series of terrorist training camps.
Moreover, after his arrival in Canada in September 1995, Mr. Harkat quickly made some dubious friends. He has admitted to meeting Ahmed Said Kadhr, the man believed to be the highest-ranking Canadian in al-Qaeda. In 1997 he met another man, Fahed Shehri, a Saudi who was then in a Canadian jail awaiting deportation for his links to terrorism. And he received $18,000 from another mysterious figure, identified only as Wael, who stayed with him in his Ottawa apartment for two weeks.
His associations now form a central part of the case against Mr. Harkat.
"That's one of the problems for him currently: He has been seen with and has admitted to some shabby associations and that's definitely problematic at this point for him," said Michel Juneau-Katsuya, a former senior counterterrorism officer with CSIS.
'Untrue Statements Made to Canadian Officials'
In its brief filed with the Federal Court of Canada, CSIS outlined five key areas in which it contends Mr. Harkat lied. The compilation of alleged lies is based on three separate interviews that CSIS agents conducted with Mr. Harkat between 1997 and 1998.
Among other things, CSIS believes he was untruthful in statements that concern:
His work for a relief agency in Pakistan: Mr. Harkat claimed that he left Algeria in 1990, when the government clamped down on the activities of an Islamic political party to which he belonged, the Front islamique du salut (FIS).
Mr. Harkat obtained a visa for Saudi Arabia by claiming he was going to do a pilgrimage to Mecca. In Saudi Arabia, he said, he met some Algerian students who introduced him to Saudis involved in relief work with the Muslim World League (M.W.L.). He accepted a job working for the agency in Pakistan.
Mr. Harkat said he arrived in Pakistan in May 1990 and that he supervised the distribution of relief aid to refugees between Peshawar and Islamabad.
When asked by CSIS to provide documentation showing that he had worked for the relief agency, however, he searched his briefcase for papers, but couldn't find any.
Mr. Harkat told CSIS he had worked with an Afghani engineer named Abdulla, but that he couldn't remember his last name.
"I find that very hard to believe," said the CSIS agent interviewing Mr. Harkat. "You are saying that you do not know that there are terrorist organizations operating in Pakistan?"
Despite the agent's incredulity, Mr. Harkat continued to insist that he was unaware of any such activity in Pakistan.
Asked about his salary, Mr. Harkat said he was paid $300 U.S. a month and managed to save $9,000 during his four years of work.
Mr. Harkat ceased working with the agency in June 1994, but did not leave Pakistan until August 1995.
When he came to Canada he paid $5,000 for an airline ticket, $1,200 for a false passport, and had $1,000 in his pocket.
Travel to Afghanistan: During the five years Mr. Harkat was in Pakistan, he claimed he had never travelled to Afghanistan. Mr. Harkat said he was never sent to Afghanistan for relief work because Afghanis were responsible for the distribution of aid in that country.
CSIS, however, alleges this is a plain falsehood. It also alleges that Mr. Harkat had an association with Abu Zubaida, one of Mr. binLaden's top lieutenants, who ran al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan.
Mr. Zubaida was recently captured in Pakistan and is reportedly co-operating with U.S. investigators.
Moreover, Mr. Harkat's wife has also contradicted her husband. Sophie Harkat said this week that it's her understanding that her husband did travel to Afghanistan.
"I had my concerns after he mentioned that he had gone to Afghanistan," she told the Citizen's Lee Greenberg.
Use of aliases: Mr. Harkat at first told CSIS he didn't have any aliases, then said he only used aliases when he met people in Pakistan that he did not trust.
Mr. Harkat explained that aliases are very common in Pakistan and everyone uses them.
Nonetheless, he denied ever being known by the aliases Abu Muslim, Abu Muslima, Adnani or Adnan.
CSIS, however, said it believes Mr. Harkat has lied about never using aliases "in part, to distance himself from being associated with individuals or groups who may have participated in the Bin Laden network."
'His support for individuals ... involved in political violence or terrorist activity, his alliances with Islamic extremists'
CSIS contends Mr. Harkat has associated with a host of Islamic extremists and people involved in terrorist activities.
Mr. Harkat admits he knows some of the men, but maintains he has no meaningful connection to any of them.
In its court brief, CSIS states in bold terms that it believes Mr. Harkat has associated with Mr. Zubaida, the high-ranking Al-Qaeda operative.
Mr. Zubaida ran at least two al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, Khaldun and Darunta, during the 1990s and played a key role in arranging for terrorist recruits to travel from Pakistan into Afghanistan.
CSIS does not make public the evidence that allegedly ties Mr. Harkat to Mr. Zubaida, nor has it publicly claimed Mr. Harkat attended an al-Qaeda training camp. But in co-operating with American investigators after his capture, Mr. Zubaida may be identifying training-camp recruits.
Mr. Harkat maintains he never entered Afghanistan during the four years that he worked for an aid agency in northern Pakistan.
He came to Canada in 1995, Mr. Harkat said, because he believed this country respected human rights. He told CSIS that he did not know a soul here.
Mr. Harkat said he arrived in Toronto and decided to go to Ottawa simply because it was the capital. Once he arrived at the Ottawa bus terminal, he said, he met a cab driver, an Arabic-speaking man named Thaer, who took him to the Ottawa Mosque on Northwestern Avenue.
There, according to Mr. Harkat, he happened to meet an Egyptian, Mohamed El Barseigy, who was looking to share an apartment on Britannia Road in Ottawa. The men lived together for the next five months.
CSIS does not believe the meetings were simple happenstance. Instead, they suspect Mr. Harkat had contacts with Islamic extremists, including Ahmed Said Khadr, a Canadian citizen implicated in the bombing of the Egyptian embassy in Pakistan in 1995, before arriving in this country.
In a 1998 interview with CSIS agents, Mr. Harkat at first denied ever meeting Mr. Khadr. Asked whether he was certain, however, Mr.Harkat conceded that he had met Mr. Khadr on a visit to Toronto with Mr. El Barseigy.