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.

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.

Coalition calls for public inquiry into second leak

Montreal, 10 August 2011 -- The Coalition Justice for Adil Charkaoui is outraged by the leak of a secret document containing completely false allegations against Montrealer Adil Charkaoui, whose security certificate case was struck down in 2009. Noting that an almost identical leak happened in 2007, the Coalition is calling for a public inquiry and asking other Canadians to join it in challenging Minister Jason Kenney's unacceptable comments.

"These allegations are false and constitute a wholly unmerited attack on my reputation and my security," said Mr. Charkaoui. "I spent six years of my life proving my innocence in a secret court process when I didn't even know what I was accused of. After the federal court revoked the security certificate against me, I expressed the hope that I wouldn't spend the rest of my life as an 'ex-suspected'. Now, almost two years after the court cleared my name, I find myself again in the court of public opinion. This must stop."

Aug 7th, 2011, Maher Arar, Prism Magazine
http://prism-magazine.com/2011/08/bomb-plot-leak-to-la-presse-and-the-mi...

The latest bomb plot information (or misinformation) that was leaked to La Presse implicating both Charkaoui and Abousfian should make every Canadian concerned about how national security information is being disseminated in the public domain without checks and balances, and most importantly, without going through the proper judicial channels.

To start with let us briefly and carefully review this information which is now found on almost every major news web site in Canada.

In summary, the information, part of which seems to be recycled, relates to an alleged “encrypted” phone conversation that took place in the year 2000 during which both Charkaoui and Abousfian discussed a potential bomb plot to blow up an unspecified commercial plane. Moreover, it states that shortly after the interception of this alleged phone conversation CSIS found traces of explosives in Abousfian’s car.

Without arriving to a conclusion on the credibility of this information, which only a judge with full access to all documents can do, the timing and the nature of this leak raises very important questions of national importance: