Montreal, 9 May 2013 - The Coalition Justice for Adil Charkaoui rejects the utterly unfounded and demonstrably false allegations against Mr. Charkaoui parroted by Radio Canada, La Presse and McLean's starting on 7 May 2013. The Coalition, which has worked alongside Mr. Charkaoui for almost ten years, denounces the disgusting tactics of defamation as well as the role played by an uncritical and uninformed media.

"These kind of unfounded and unproven allegations that CSIS continues to spread in the media against me only motivate me all the more to fight in the courts and all other fora." said Mr. Charkaoui

"I am not surprised at this new slander campaign; the Canadian government habituated us to this kind of thing during the almost 6 years of secret trial process. But today, before the Superior Court of Quebec, all unfounded allegations are only an additional proof of abuse," added Mr. Charkaoui.

By Colin Perkel, The Canadian Press, September 9, 2012

TORONTO - A judge's findings in freeing a Syrian-born man from almost eight years of national security detention should be enough to validate his civil claim against the federal government, his lawyers are set to argue this week.

On the contrary, government lawyers say, the Federal Court findings in favour of Hassan Almrei should not apply to his lawsuit because they were made for an entirely different purpose.

It will be up to Ontario's top court to choose between the two competing visions in deciding whether a lower court justice was right to side with the government.

Most of the arguments before the Ontario Court of Appeal are highly technical — essentially turning on whether the Federal Court that quashed Almrei's national security certificate decided once and for all the issues now at play in his civil suit.

Almrei, 38, of Mississauga, Ont., came to Canada in 1999 and was granted refugee status in 2000. He spent almost eight years in custody or house arrest as a security threat until Federal Court Judge Richard Mosley set aside the designation in December 2009 after a 38-day trial.

Mosley found no evidence he had ever been a member of al Qaida, and that the government relied on outdated information against him some of which might have been obtained through torture.

Gazette, Marian Scott, 5 December 2011

MONTREAL — Advocates for five men arrested under security certificates said they were stunned to learn that Canada’s spy agency believed cases against them could fall apart if it could not use information obtained by torture.

On Saturday, the Montreal Gazette revealed that in 2008, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) warned the minister of public security that it could become impossible to use security certificates to arrest and deport suspected terrorists if it was prohibited from using information from foreign regimes known to use torture.

In a letter obtained by the Montreal Gazette, former CSIS director Jim Judd warned that a proposed bill then before Parliament “could render unsustainable the current security certificate proceedings.” A security certificate is a means by which the government may detain and deport non-citizens perceived as a threat to national security.

The letter calls into question CSIS’s assurances that it did not countenance the use of torture abroad.

On Sunday, an advocacy group representing men who have been detained under security certificates hailed the report as proof that CSIS and top government officials knew terror cases might not stand up without information obtained under duress.

Toronto/Montreal/Ottawa, 4 December 2011 -- Several men whose lives were turned upside down when they were labelled and arrested as “threats to national security” were stunned to learn yesterday that CSIS itself believed that the cases against them would fall apart if CSIS were prevented from using information obtained from the use of torture. The startling admission was made in a secret memo sent from former CSIS head Jim Judd to then Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day in January 2008. Post media made the contents of the memo public yesterday.

“It is unbelievable. CSIS has been lying to us for years! But I don't know which is worse - CSIS's position or the fact that top officials like Stockwell Day were made aware but went ahead and signed the new certificates against us anyway, effectively condoning the use of torture and condemning us to several more years of arbitrary detention,” said Adil Charkaoui. Charkaoui is a Montreal teacher and father of four who won twice at the Supreme Court and was finally freed in 2009. He is currently seeking an apology from the government through court proceedings.

Despite its own evaluation that the cases would not meet new Canadian legal standards, introduced in February 2008, the agency advised Minister Day to issue the certificates. Day complied.

Spy agency worried bill would undercut anti-terrorism work

Catherine Solyom, Montreal Gazette, 3 December 2011
www.montrealgazette.com/news/Torture+strategy+accepted+letter+shows/5805...

Canada's spy agency was so reliant on information obtained through torture that it suggested the whole security certificate regime, used to control suspected terrorists in the country, would fall apart if they couldn't use it.

That's the essence of a letter written in 2008 by the former director of CSIS, Jim Judd, obtained by The Gazette.

It suggests a disturbing acceptance by the national security agency of torture as a legitimate strategy to counter terrorism.

The letter, dated Jan. 15, 2008, was sent from Judd to the minister of public security just as the government was finalizing Bill C-3, legislation to replace the security certificate law which was struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional in February 2007.

The government had been given a year to come up with new legislation that would respect the charter rights of those targeted by the certificates.

Saturday, 10 December 2011, 6pm
Maison de l'amitié, 120 Duluth St. East, Montreal
(Sherbrooke metro)

- suggested donation of $20 (pay what you can; no one turned away) - vegetarian & hallal options - childcare onsite - we regret that Maison de l'Amitié is not wheel-chair accessible -

Programme includes:

Adil Charkaoui. Adil Charkaoui spent over six years of his life trying to free himself from a security certicate, on the streets and in the courts. He won!

Johanne Doyon. Johanne Doyon has been working on Charkaoui's case since 2003. She brought the case against security certificates to the Supreme Court and won, and finally winning Charkaoui's case in the Federal Court as well.

Stefan Christoff (piano) with Peter Burton (contrabass) and Norman Nawrocki (fiddle). Stefan Christoff is a pianist and community activist in Montreal who will be performing compositions from an upcoming album of instrumental piano duets to be released in Montreal in 2012, listen to Stefan's music at http://soundcloud.com/spirodon. Peter Burton is an improvisational musician playing contrabass who also works with Suoni per il Popolo festival. Norman Nawrocki (pronounced Nav-rot-ski) is a local writer, musician, activist in Montreal.

Fundraising Campaign to cover legal costs

It's been two years since the Federal Court of Canada struck down the security certificate that held the Charkaoui family in a virtual prison for six and a half years. Two years have passed but the struggle for justice is still not won. The government has not been held accountable and Adil Charkaoui still does not have citizenship. We need your support!

From 2003 to 2009:

* Adil was imprisoned, for 22 months, at Rivière des prairies Detention Centre in Montreal, without charge and on the basis of information that was never disclosed to him;

* For over four years, he was subject to an intrusive and humiliating form of house arrest, still without charge, and without disclosure of the information;

* CSIS destroyed evidence in his file and, although the Supreme Court agreed that the practice was illegal and that it created a prejudice against Adil in the case, CSIS was not penalized and the case continued;

* The Supreme Court struck down security certificate legislation as unconstitutional, but Adil was kept under the same conditions until "new" legislation - which the Quebec Bar Association qualified as "not sufficiently different from its predecessor to be considered constitutionally valid" - was introduced, a new certificate issued and the process started all over again;

October 4, 2011, Carmen Cheung, BCCLA
http://nationalsecurity.bccla.org/2011/10/04/whispers-and-innuendo/

Today, the BCCLA wrote to the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Public Safety about a recent government leak of purported intelligence information implicating two Canadians in a terrorist plot. The contents of the leak, the timing of it, and the government’s public statements in response to the whole affair all raise serious concerns, including whether the Canadian public can truly be informed via selective leaking of cherry-picked information.

In August, La Presse, a Montreal newspaper, published an article describing an alleged conspiracy between Adil Charkaoui and Abousfian Abdelrazik to place an explosive device on an aircraft. The alleged conspiracy was outlined in a document leaked to La Presse, which purported to be a 2004 report from CSIS summarizing conversation reportedly intercepted in 2000.

Document leak to media brings back 'nightmare'

KATHERINE LALANCETTE, Montreal Gazette, 11 August 2011

MONTREAL - Adil Charkaoui says he's tired of having his name dragged through the mud, calling the latest terrorism allegations against him "a recurring nightmare."

Along with the Coalition Justice for Adil Charkaoui, the Montreal teacher and father of four is calling for a public inquiry into last week's document leak.
On Aug. 4, what appeared to be a Canadian Security Intelligence Service document from 2004 was anonymously released to the media. The document, which CSIS would not confirm was its own, alleged Charkaoui and Abousfian Abdelrazik had plotted to bomb a Montreal to Paris flight over a decade ago.

Both men, once suspected of terrorism but later cleared by Canadian authorities, vehemently denied the allegations.

Charkaoui, a Moroccan-born permanent resident of Canada, succeeded in getting his name cleared in 2009 after he was detained under a security certificate - a seldom used measure allowing authorities to arrest and hold non-citizens without charge and without disclosing the evidence against them.

Reg Whitaker, Prism, 12 Aug 2011

The recent leak to La Presse of an alleged CSIS document implicating Adil Charkaoui and Abousfian Abdelrazik in a plot to bomb an airliner raises the most serious issues.

These emphatically do not include the specific allegation nor the implication that either man represents an actual terrorist threat. These are without substance, as the government’s own conduct of the Charkaoui security certificate appeal and its handling of Abdelrazik’s case clearly demonstrate.

The real issues surround the behaviour of Canadian security agencies in apparently violating the Security of Information Act to defame individuals whom they have been unable to convict in the courts

The real issues surround the behaviour of Canadian security agencies in apparently violating the Security of Information Act to defame individuals whom they have been unable to convict in the courts; media complicity with such behaviour; and finally the potential responsibility of high government officials in either deliberately failing to investigate and charge the leakers, or by covertly authorizing such actions by their appointees.