Abousfian Abdelrazik, a 46-year-old Sudanese Canadian fingered by CSIS as a terrorist suspect, has been marooned in Khartoum for nearly five years as successive Canadian governments have refused him a passport and thwarted other efforts to bring him home to his family in Montreal.
Mr. Abdelrazik - who faces no criminal charges - denies he belongs to al-Qaeda or has ever been to Afghanistan. He can't explain why Canadian, French and U.S. counterterrorist agencies have labelled him a terrorist.
"I love Canada and I want to go home, I want to see my children, I want to live a normal life," Mr. Abdelrazik said during one of several telephone interviews from Khartoum.
The Montreal resident said Canadian diplomats told him "they cannot help me because Canada is a member of the United Nations."
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Internet Links
- Interactive Timeline: Exiled in Sudan
- Interpol notice
- United Nations Security Council sanctions list
In 2006, some government - perhaps Canada's - added Mr. Abdelrazik's name to the UN Security Council's list of international terrorist suspects, which requires member states to freeze his assets.
He is also on the no-fly list maintained by airlines, which are compiled with the covert input from government counterterrorism agencies, including Canada's.
Three years earlier, in August of 2003, Mr. Abdelrazik was plucked off the streets of Khartoum after returning to Sudan from Montreal to visit his ailing mother. No reason has ever been given for his arrest.
However, CSIS documents marked "secret" and now in the possession of The Globe and Mail say Sudan imprisoned Mr. Abdelrazik "at our request." Blacked-out portions that obliterate sections of many pages whenever there are references to security agencies may explain why.
CSIS had been interested in Mr. Abdelrazik since 1999 - and perhaps earlier - when he associated with several other Muslim men believed to be linked to al-Qaeda. CSIS agents questioned him numerous times.
Mr. Abdelrazik's lawyer asserts that Canada was complicit in his detention, calling it "another form of extraordinary rendition."
More than 1,000 pages of government documents - many of them heavily redacted - corroborate Mr. Abdelrazik's accounts of a long, but futile, effort to end his imposed exile in Sudan and return home.
Officially, Mr. Abdelrazik has been told by Canadian diplomats he's welcome to go home. But his efforts to return have been stymied at every step by Canada's refusal to issue him a passport, the claim that they can do nothing about his "no-fly" status, and perhaps most startlingly, by thwarting offers by Sudan to fly him back to Canada.
The document trail obtained by The Globe ends in early 2006, but Mr. Abdelrazik's limbo continues. He remains under police surveillance in Khartoum. He makes frequent visits to the Canadian embassy, which has been doling him out $100 a month from a special fund for distressed citizens. He's being allowed to telephone his family in Montreal, but the embassy hasn't issued him a passport or travel documents, which could hold the key to his return.
At the same time, he is a Canadian citizen facing no charges, and in a world of unsubstantiated security targeting, a suspected terrorist believed to be so dangerous that he must be kept out of North America.
The trove of documents makes clear that the "highest levels" of both the past Liberal and the current Conservative governments were kept fully informed of Mr. Abdelrazik's case and concurred in its handling. More recently, Mr. Abdelrazik's lawyers sent letters to Prime Minister Stephen Harper demanding his intervention. Last month, officials from Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier's office met with Mr. Abdelrazik in Khartoum.
Late last week, The Globe and Mail sent the Harper government written questions concerning Mr. Abdelrazik's case, including asking why the government had decided to deny a Canadian citizen a passport and had failed to repatriate him. No replies have been received from Mr. Bernier's office.
Documents make it clear one of Ottawa's biggest concerns was the potential political furor if the case became public. Briefing notes, cleared by CSIS and the intelligence sections of Foreign Affairs, were prepared to carefully coach ministers. They include carefully worded replies to questions about whether Canadian authorities shared intelligence about Mr. Abdelrazik with the Sudanese or U.S. governments, whether Canada was the originator of information that resulted in on him being placed on "no-fly" lists and how to respond if asked about parallels to Maher Arar's case, in which another Canadian originally fingered by CSIS ended up being tortured in a Syrian prison.
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