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The government doesn't have to pay the legal bills for a Canadian citizen even if he is broke and holed up in Canada's embassy in Khartoum, a Federal Court judge has ruled.

Abousfian Abdelrazik, once fingered as an al-Qaeda operative by Canadian security agents and blacklisted by the United Nations as a suspected terrorist, has been given “temporary safe haven” in the embassy by the Harper government, which now says it wants him off the blacklist. But, that doesn't mean it should pay his legal bills, Madam Justice Anne Mactavish said Friday. She did, however, order Canadian diplomats not to read confidential papers sent by his lawyers nor to delay delivery of them.

The judge suggested Islamic groups, Mr. Abdelrazik's family or perhaps Amnesty International Canada should pick up the tab for his legal efforts to force the government to issue him a new passport and bring him home.

“Suffice it to say that, at this juncture, there is at least a chance that Mr. Abdelrazik may be able to obtain an exemption from the application of the United Nations al-Qaida and Taliban Regulations so as to allow his supporters to assist him with his legal expenses,” Judge Mactavish wrote.

The UN rules don't make clear whether paying his legal bills amounts to illegally aiding a blacklisted person. Mr. Abdelrazik, who has never been charged with any crime and denies any links to terrorist or extremist groups, can't return to his family in Montreal. He remains on international and Canadian “no-fly” lists because some unidentified country – likely the United States or France – blocked Canada's effort to have him removed from the UN Security Council al-Qaeda blacklist.

Getting blacklisted on the so-called 1267 list, named for the UN Security Council Resolution originally co-sponsored by Canada, is easy. Any UN-member country can finger a suspect. Getting off is almost impossible and once listed all UN countries are required to seize the assets of any individual and enforce a travel ban, although returning home is explicitly permitted.

Yavar Hameed, an Ottawa lawyer, has been working on Mr. Abdelrazik's case since last year but told the court that he can't afford to keep working for nothing. He was seeking an order requiring the government to pick up the costs of the litigation.

Although the judge refused to order the government to pay the legal bills, the larger issue of whether the government will be ordered to repatriate Mr. Abdelrazik has yet to be decided.

For more than two months, Mr. Abdelrazik has been living inside the Canadian embassy in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum while the government decides whether to fly him home.

Judge Mactavish did issue an order requiring Canadian diplomats to cease interfering with communication between Mr. Abdelrazik and his lawyers, forbidding diplomats from intercepting and reading such communications.

The judge ordered Foreign Affairs officials “including personnel at the embassy in Khartoum not to read communications passing between Mr. Abdelrazik and his counsel or make copies of those communications.”

However, the judge declined to order Canadian intelligence agencies – including the secretive branch that specializes in intercepting voice and data communications – from eavesdropping on Mr. Abdelrazik's conversations.

In its submissions to the court, government lawyers acting for Foreign Affairs Minister David Emerson said he couldn't control CSIS or other Canadian spying agencies. “The minister takes the position that he has no power to control the activities of other government departments or agencies,” Judge Mactavish wrote, adding, “I agree and decline to make the order forbidding interception of Mr. Abdelrazik's telephone calls.”