Harkat's future rests in judge's hands

Original author: Andrew Duffy
Source: The Ottawa Citizen
URL: http://tinyurl.com/55vnu (subscribers only)
Date: December 10, 2004

Defence pleads with jurist not to take 'easy' route and rubber stamp government's terrorist claim

The lawyer for Ottawa's Mohamed Harkat yesterday pleaded with the judge in his case not to take the "easy" route of rubber stamping the government's claim that he's a terrorist threat.

In his final submission, Paul Copeland told Federal Court Justice Eleanor Dawson he considers the case to be as serious as one involving capital punishment, since Mr. Harkat is convinced he will be tortured or killed if deported to Algeria.

Mr. Harkat can be returned to Algeria if the court upholds the government's security certificate, which alleges he's an al-Qaeda terrorist.

"The easy way to do this case is to err on the side of caution and say he poses a threat," Mr. Copeland told Judge Dawson, "but to do that would be shirking your duty."

Mr. Copeland said the case against Mr. Harkat wants badly for the kind of detail required in most court proceedings.

What's more, he said, Judge Dawson will have to assess on her own the evidence taken in secret against Mr. Harkat since only government lawyers were in court for those hearings.

"I do not envy you your task," he added.

Judge Dawson must decide whether two federal cabinet ministers made a reasonable decision in issuing a security certificate against Mr. Harkat two years ago today.

The public portion of the hearing into the reasonableness of the certificate concluded yesterday with final arguments from Mr. Copeland and James Mathieson, the government's lawyer.

Mr. Mathieson will make a second closing argument, based on evidence heard in camera, at a later date in a hearing again closed to the public and to Mr. Harkat.

In his submission yesterday, Mr. Mathieson characterized Mr. Harkat as a proven liar, who has consistently misled the Canadian Security Intelligence Service about his activities at home and abroad.

Mr. Harkat, he said, has admitted on the witness stand he lied to CSIS about using the alias, Abu Muslim, while in Pakistan in the early 1990s. "I would submit that much of the testimony of Mr. Harkat simply does not ring true," he charged.

Mr. Mathieson said Mr. Harkat was unbelievable when he said he received $18,000 from a friend in Pakistan to open a gas station in Ottawa; and that he didn't have much to discuss with Ahmed Said Khadr, then the senior-most al-Qaeda figure in Canada, when they shared a car ride to Toronto in 1995.

Mr. Harkat has testified his Ottawa roommate arranged the ride with Mr. Khadr. He insisted he didn't know Mr. Khadr personally and that he barely spoke with him during the ride since he was then preoccupied with his refugee claim.

Mr. Copeland pointed to the ride with Mr. Khadr as evidence his client is not part of an al-Qaeda sleeper cell as is alleged by the government.

"If he's supposed to be lying low, drawing no attention to himself, why would he in God's name, why would he meet the most senior al-Qaeda person in the country? It makes no sense whatsoever."

The most serious allegation made against Mr. Harkat in public 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, 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, or having any connection to Mr. Zubaydah.

Mr. Copeland suggested yesterday the entire case could turn on the question of whether Mr. Harkat went to Afghanistan.

If the federal government has presented convincing evidence in secret that Mr. Harkat travelled to Afghanistan and attended a terrorist training camp, the security certificate was justified, he said. However, he warned, if there's no such evidence, the case crumbles.

"I would say that fact alone -- if they can't establish to your satisfaction that he was in Afghanistan -- that should affect your conclusions about the whole case," Mr. Copeland told Judge Dawson.

Mr. Copeland conceded his client lied to CSIS about some details of his life and his associations, but he argued those untruths should not lead to the conclusion he's connected to terrorism. It should be remembered, he said, that CSIS has sown considerable fear in the Arab-Canadian community since Sept. 11, 2001, because of aggressive attempts to recruit informants and pursue security threats.

Mr. Harkat, 36, who won refugee status in Canada after arriving in September 1995, worked as a pizza delivery man and gas station attendant.

Judge Dawson reserved her decision in the case.

(c) The Ottawa Citizen 2004


Back to Mohamed Harkat Page