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.

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