A letter from the Algerian government points, for the first time, to the evidence that Canada may be relying upon to support its contention that Mohamed Harkat made al-Qaeda contacts in Afghanistan in the early 1990s. That letter, prepared by the Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and filed in Federal Court, says Mr. Harkat travelled to Afghanistan in 1991 and participated in the "Afghan resistance." Algerian authorities became aware of that activity in February 1992, the letter says, when a report about Mr. Harkat was received. He then became became subject to an internal "watch card" in Algeria. The Foreign Ministry letter, dated July 17, 2005, was delivered to Canada's ambassador in response to his request for information about Mr. Harkat's judicial status in Algeria. Mr. Harkat, an Algerian refugee and former Ottawa pizza delivery man, stands accused by the federal government of being an al-Qaeda terrorist. Yet most of the evidence against him remains secret. The federal government has not even made public the specific year that it alleges Mr. Harkat was in Afghanistan. Mr. Harkat was arrested in December 2002, on the strength of a government-issued security certificate that was upheld as reasonable by Federal Court Judge Eleanor Dawson in March of this year.A key part of the case against Mr. Harkat involves the government's allegation that he travelled to Afghanistan "in the early 1990s" and formed a relationship with senior al-Qaeda lieutenant Abu Zubayda.

Mr. Harkat repeatedly denied both accusations when he appeared as a witness before Judge Dawson.

The judge, however, concluded that Mr. Harkat lied about his time in Afghanistan and his relationship with Mr. Zubayda. She relied on secret evidence to support those conclusions.

The letter from the Algerian government offers the first hint as to what secret evidence Canada may hold against Mr. Harkat, since presumably, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service sought and received similar information from the Algerians when the spy agency first became interested in Mr. Harkat in 1997.

The Algerian-born Mr. Harkat came to Canada in 1995 after spending five years in Pakistan during which time, he said, he worked as a warehouse manager for the Muslim World League.

Mr. Harkat won refugee status in Canada based on his assertion that he had fled Algeria as a political dissident owing to his membership in the Front Islamique du Salut (FIS), a party that was subject to a military crackdown in the early 1990s.

In its recent letter, Algerian authorities confirm that Mr. Harkat was a member of the now disbanded FIS. But they make no mention of his membership in the violent wing of the FIS, the Groupe Islamique Arme (GIA), which is dedicated to replacing the Algerian government with an Islamic state.

The Canadian government alleges Mr. Harkat is a member of the GIA.

In a telephone interview yesterday from the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre, Mr. Harkat said he has no idea why the Algerian government believes he was in Afghanistan. "No, I never left Pakistan," he insisted.

He suggested Algerian officials would accept any story that tarred his reputation because he was a known opponent of the Algerian government, which in 1992 cancelled national elections. The FIS was then on the brink of winning power.

Mr. Harkat's lawyer, Paul Copeland, said the Algerian letter is worthless as evidence since it's rife with mistakes. The letter is clearly wrong about the year he left Algeria (it says "the late 1990s" when it was, in fact, 1990) and the year he left Pakistan for Canada (1993 instead of 1995).

Mr. Copeland said it's impossible to know if the federal government has relied on Algerian intelligence to make its case that Mr. Harkat was in Afghanistan.

"Justice Dawson relied on something: I don't know where it came and what it was," he said. "The Algerian letter is so full of inaccuracies, insofar as I understand the facts, as to be meaningless."

Mr. Harkat is seeking bail while the government decides whether to deport him as a security threat in spite of concerns that he will be tortured or killed in Algeria.

The letter from the Foreign Ministry came in response to a request from the Canadian Embassy in Algeria. Officials wanted to understand whether Mr. Harkat faces any charges or arrest warrants in the country. The letter will form part of a package of material that must be considered by the federal official designated to rule on whether Mr. Harkat's deportation should proceed.

Mr. Harkat yesterday said that the Algerian government's belief that he was in Afghanistan only increases the likelihood that he will be harmed or "disappeared" if returned to that country.

"If the Algerian government believes I was in Afghanistan, that's a big problem too," he said. "It's more dangerous for my life."

© The Ottawa Citizen 2005