Abousfian Abdelrazik, the Canadian citizen whose reputation remains tainted by ministerial accusations, wants his name restored and those Canadian security agents who aided his imprisonment in Sudan brought to justice.
“It is not over,” he said. “I need my name removed as soon as possible from that list.” He was referring to the United Nations Security Council blacklist of terrorist suspects known as the 1267 list, named for the resolution, co-sponsored by Canada, that created it.
I want to “live my life like a normal person, … like a normal Canadian,” Mr. Abdelrazik said.
In a wide-ranging and sometimes chilling account of six years of imprisonment and forced exile abroad, Mr. Abdelrazik recounted stories of interrogation and alleged torture. He told of Canadian Security and Intelligence Service agents laughingly saying “Sudan will be your Guantanamo” when he begged to be allowed to return home.
His ordeal – described as Kafkaesque by the federal court judge who ordered him repatriated – is far from ended. But the Harper government made it clear that Mr. Abdelrazik couldn't expect any support in his efforts to remove his name from the UN list.
Foreign Minster Lawrence Cannon, in a letter delivered Thursday, told Mr. Abdelrazik to check out a UN website that explains delisting procedures for individuals. “I regret to inform you that I must decline your invitation to meet,” the minister wrote.
It was Mr. Cannon who labelled Mr. Abdelrazik a threat to national security, in spite of the fact that he had been cleared by CSIS and the RCMP. Mr. Cannon made no mention of the fact that the Harper government had already sought – in December of 2007 – to have Mr. Abdelrazik delisted after the security agencies said they had knew of no reason not to back the request.
That delisting application was vetoed, apparently by the United States, which originally put him on the blacklist.
Although individuals can apply for “delisting,” only governments can add people to the terrorist blacklist, and unless all 15 members of the Security Council agree to a delisting, it is denied. UN sources confirm that no one has ever been delisted without the backing of their government.
Mr. Abdelrazik is the only living Canadian on the list. The only other listed Canadian is Ahmed Khadr, who has been dead since 2003.
Mr. Abdelrazik, who has repeatedly – and under oath – denied any involvement in terrorism, restated those claims Thursday.
He point-by-point denied the allegations cited by the U.S. government in nominating him to the blacklist. They include that he fought in Chechnya, trained in a terrorist camp in Afghanistan, knew Osama bin Laden and was a key operative in al-Qaeda.
“I have never seen bin Laden in my entire life. … I have never been to Chechnya,” he said. He said he had never been to Afghanistan. “I have never hurt anyone in my life,” Mr. Abdelrazik said in an impassioned 40-minute news conference on Parliament Hill. “I have never been involved in that sort of thing.”
But he did offer an account of torture and abuse in Sudanese prisons. CSIS agents allegedly told him he would never see Canada again when they interrogated him in a Sudanese jail in October of 2003.
“Sudan will be your Guantanamo,” he quoted one CSIS agent as telling him, a reference to the U.S. prison for terrorist suspects on a naval base in Cuba, where hundreds have been held – many in solitary confinement and without charge – for years.
Mr. Abdelrazik said one of the two CSIS interrogators was the same agent who questioned him at his home two days before he flew to Khartoum in March of 2003. Mr. Abdelrazik said he had called the Montreal police to get the CSIS agents to leave.
“One of them, he turned and said to me, ‘You will see…' ” he said.
