A Hamilton man convicted in a French terror plot told his extradition hearing yesterday that CSIS tried to force him to spy on Montreal's Islamic community.

Abdellah Ouzghar told the court that CSIS agents first visited him in 1996, when he was living in Montreal, and told him they wanted information about people he knew.

"They were asking me to spy," Mr. Ouzghar told the court as he described the visit. He said he rebuffed the agents, telling them that their demand was against the principles of Islam. He recalled his reply to the agents: "I am not made for this . . . I will not work for you because my religion forbids me to spy on Muslims and I have the proof and it's in the Koran."

That 1996 visit, Mr. Ouzghar said, was the beginning of a long process that was marked by ever-increasing pressure on him to turn informant. Mr. Ouzghar, who was born in Morocco, told the court that police stopped him during a 1998 visit to his home country, took away his Canadian passport, and told him that he wouldn't get it back unless he agreed to spy.

He said his brother, who works for the Moroccan secret police, warned him that Moroccan officials were working with CSIS, and that he would be tortured or even killed unless he went along with the spy agency's demands.

Mr. Ouzghar told the court that he finally agreed to help CSIS, and was given a written list of people in the Montreal Islamic community on whom he was to report.

He said he never did spy for CSIS; he had agreed only to get his passport back.

Mr. Ouzghar's spy-recruitment story is the latest wrinkle in a long-running security saga. In April, 2001, a French court convicted him in absentia for providing forged documents to terrorists, and is seeking his extradition. Mr. Ouzghar's lawyer, Rocco Galati, told the court that the French conviction, and the attempt to extradite him, were organized as payback for his client's refusal to act as a spy.

In court yesterday, Mr. Ouzghar related a complex personal history. He was born in Morocco in 1964 but lived in several countries.

He came to Canada in 1989 as an immigrant, and lived in Montreal and Quebec City. He studied and worked at a series of jobs and married a Muslim woman in 1991. He and his wife travelled several times between Canada and Morocco, where, Mr. Ouzghar says, he proudly displayed his Canadian passport.

He said that after telling officials he would spy for CSIS to get his passport back in 1998, he returned to Canada. He told the court he was terrified that CSIS or the Moroccan secret police would seek retribution if he didn't come through for them.

Mr. Ouzghar said he moved to Ontario trying to throw police off his trail, settling in Hamilton, where he began studying English. In October of 1999, three RCMP officers appeared outside his classroom and demanded that he take them to his apartment.

Police searched his apartment, Mr. Ouzghar said, and confiscated a box full of belongings that included a videotape and his agenda. He testified he was taken to a Hamilton RCMP office and interrogated. The hearing continues.