A former senior official at Canada’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said there were concerns 20 years ago that Montrealer Absoufian Abdelrazik would end up in a prison for terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Daniel Livermore, the department’s former director of security and intelligence, testified Wednesday in federal court in Abdelrazik’s civil suit against Ottawa over his detention and allegations of torture in Sudan.
Abdelrazik, who was born in Sudan, became a Canadian citizen in the 1990s and was arrested in 2003 while visiting his home country to visit his ailing mother.
Abdelrazik denies any involvement in terrorism, but says he was tortured during two separate detentions by Sudanese intelligence services.
Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) officials visited him in custody in October 2003.
Livermore told the court that in 2004, he tried to get Abdelrazik to fly home from Khartoum via Germany on a commercial plane.
He recalled Canadian Foreign Affairs’ concerns that the U.S. no-fly list would disrupt Abdelrazik’s trip and result in him being held in the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay.
Livermore said Americans were “very concerned” about Abdelrazik’s case and did not want him to return to Canada.
Livermore said there were “significant disagreements” between CSIS and Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs over whether Abdelrazik should return.
“CSIS continued to express its view to us that he was a dangerous terrorist,” he said.
Abdelrazik sues government
Mr. Abdelrazik, 62, is suing the Canadian government, alleging that authorities arranged his arbitrary imprisonment, encouraged his detention by Sudanese authorities, and actively blocked his return to Canada over several years. .
The lawsuit also names Lawrence Cannon, who was Conservative foreign secretary from October 2008 to May 2011.
Federal lawyers argue that Mr. Abdelrazik is the author of his own misfortune, and that Canada did not ask Sudan to continue to detain him, mistreat him, or create any risk that this would happen. I am doing it.
Mr. Abdelrazik was released from Sudanese detention for the second time in July 2006. However, efforts to return to Canada were complicated by his inclusion on a United Nations security watch list.
In response to inquiries from the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, CSIS and the RCMP said in November 2007 that neither agency had current and substantive information to support Mr. Abdelrazik’s continued listing.
In December 2007, then-Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier conveyed a request to the UN committee to remove Abdelrazik from the list. However, the committee disagreed.
Mr Bernier, who served as foreign minister from August 2007 to May 2008, told the court on Wednesday that it was “concerning to me” to hear the suggestion that the Sudanese had detained Mr Abdelrazik at Canada’s request. Ta.
“I wanted to know more about it,” said Bernier, who later left the Conservative Party and now heads the People’s Party of Canada.
He noted that Mr. Abdelrazik has not been charged with any offence, and that Canadians enjoy the protections of the Charter of Rights.
In March 2008, Deepak Obrei, then Parliamentary Under-Secretary of Foreign Affairs, met with Abdelrazik in Sudan, along with Canadian Foreign Ministry officials.
According to an agreed statement of facts in the case, Abdelrazik told them that Sudanese authorities had tortured him. He pulled up his shirt to reveal marks on his elbows, stomach and back that he claimed were the result of abuse.
In March 2009, Abdelrazik secured a ticket to Canada for the following month. However, the issuance of an emergency passport was refused.
Abdelrazik returned to Canada in June 2009 after a judge ruled that Ottawa had violated his constitutional rights by refusing to provide him with travel documents.
