Globe and Mail, COLIN FREEZE, December 5, 2007

TORONTO -- A judge, who is being urged to step up intense surveillance of an al-Qaeda suspect under house arrest, tossed out certain government exhibits depicting the suspect's residence yesterday, criticizing agents for being careless. The problem? Wrong house.

In what's fast becoming Canada's strangest "terrorism" case, federal agents were summoned to explain how bad photographic evidence was submitted to the Federal Court of Canada in the marathon matter of Mahmoud Jaballah. The same officials have been making the unprecedented argument that video cameras need to be installed in the residence, just to help them keep an eye on a man decreed a threat to national security.

The Jaballah matter is one of the country's few active security-certificate cases, which partly rely on secret government evidence heard only by judges and cabinet ministers. Sensitivities about these cases run deep, given Ottawa's insistence its officials can always be trusted to tell the truth.

Since Mr. Jaballah was released from a specially built prison for security-certificate prisoners last April, Canada Border Services Agency officials have been tasked with watching his every move, outside and inside his household - which has been frequently inspected and mapped out by federal agents.

Mindful of this, Madam Justice Carolyn Layden-Stevenson yesterday summoned a series of CBSA officers to her court to answer a pointed question: How did they manage to, in three photos filed as evidence, confound the Egyptian extremist's home with that belonging to another asylum seeker, a reputed Tamil gangster?

Apart from also being deemed dangerous, the Sri Lankan suspect, Jothiravi Sittampalam, alleged leader of the A.K. Kannan gang, shares little in common with Mr. Jaballah, an Egyptian - save for having also staved off deportation by arguing that overseas torture is likely, and being released from years of incarceration this past spring to be monitored on the outside by the CBSA.

Last week, as Mr. Jaballah sat in the witness box to plead for more leniency, he appeared perplexed. Asked to review evidence photos of his home, he stunned the court by saying it wasn't his house he was looking at.

The court was not amused by the error. CBSA agents corrected the record yesterday.

After reviewing files, enforcement officials testified they took digital photos of both residences just a few weeks apart. The mix-up occurred as an agent who was asked to e-mail the relevant photos mistakenly sent both sets, stored on a common memory card, causing both to be printed as evidence.

Defence lawyer John Norris said the bad evidence shows how it's important for suspects to have full knowledge of the allegations against them.

Everyone agreed that details are crucial in national security cases. And Mr. Norris contended yesterday that mistakes weren't limited to the CBSAs.

Outside court, he challenged a Globe and Mail story that yesterday asserted a bail "breach" had been made in the Jaballah case, when a City of Toronto social program installed a high-speed Internet line in family home.

"There has been no determination that the installation of the Bell high-speed Internet connection violated the terms of Mr. Jaballah's release," Mr. Norris said in a letter. "The issue is still before the Federal Court."

He said "the article unfairly casts a shadow over Mr. Jaballah and his family and over a worthwhile social program."