Say what you will about Adil Charkaoui, but the man does not go quietly.
He exemplifies the maxim that, if at first you don't succeed, try, try again.
Held as an alleged terrorist and facing deportation since 2003, the Moroccan immigrant has been fighting one of Canada's most powerful and sweeping anti-terrorism laws. In a six-year battle of legal attrition, he outlasted dozens of spies, border guards, and government lawyers who aligned against him, scuttling their bid to keep him in thrall, , and winning back his liberties one by one.
Federal Court Judge Danièle Tremblay-Lamer said she will issue an order by the end of Thursday lifting all conditions on him. “There will be an order all conditions be revoked immediately,” the judge said.
Whether Mr. Charkaoui ever was a terrorist is a question Canadian courts may never resolve.
Put aside the public-security implications, and the R. v. Charkaoui case becomes an almost irresistible David and Goliath story. Mr. Charkaoui has changed the way the country's spies do business – lending his name to jurisprudence that has compelled the Canadian Security Intelligence Service out of the shadows and into courtrooms, making sure to bring secret notes, recordings, and explanations of its methods in tow.
This summer, CSIS said it has had enough. Having already come out on the losing end of two Supreme Court Charkaoui rulings, the spy service felt that pursuing its case would be more damaging to national security than ending it – even though it has branded Mr. Charkaoui a high-level threat.
There remains a question of whether Ottawa can keep some restrictions on Mr. Charkaoui's movements as an appellate court settles thorny legal issues that will govern future intelligence cases.
The CSIS case against Mr. Charkaoui was, as all intelligence cases inevitably are, largely inferential. There's never been an allegation that he tried to harm anyone in Canada. Rather, he was red-flagged because of his friendships and travels during the 1990s. The spy service tried to corroborate its suspicions by referencing interrogations of suspects held in foreign jails – a practice that has proven deeply problematic.
After arriving in Canada from North Africa, Mr. Charkaoui graduated with a university degree in French literature. The was prior to his late 1990s trip to Central Asia.
He has testified travelled to meet a Muslim group in 1998 with someone from Alberta – whose name he does not remember. CSIS has alleged he actually went to an Afghanistan paramilitary camp, Khalden.
Mr. Charkaoui returned to Canada but faced no immediate allegations of involvement in terrorism. But the RCMP and the FBI began discouraging him from boarding planes, he says, adding they told him he was flagged on terrorist watch lists.
Part of the problem was heightened fears. In December, 1999, Algerian Montrealer Ahmed Ressam – himself a graduate of the Khalden camp – was caught at the Canada-U.S. border with a carload of explosives. That prompted an international investigation as to whether the “millennium bomber” was a lone wolf or part of a larger Montreal cell. CSIS has said it interviewed Mr. Ressam in a U.S. jail and that he identified mugshots of Mr. Charkaoui, describing him as a Khalden graduate.
Another part of the problem Mr. Charkaoui was being spotted around Montreal in the 1990s associating with hard-line Montreal Muslims who had been turning up in Bosnia, Afghanistan, the Sudan, and other hotspots. Many of them landed in foreign jails after 9/11.
One problematic contact that Mr. Charkaoui had from this time, according to CSIS, was Abousifian Abdelrazik, a Sudanese Canadian who on Wednesday launched a $27-million lawsuit against Ottawa for his own detention. Mr. Abdelrazik alleges federal officials conspired to have him jailed and interrogated in the Sudan, and refused to repatriate him to Canada once he was freed.
