Montreal, 22 February 2008 -- Mr. Charkaoui categorically denies the allegations made against him in the context of the new security certificate that was issued against him today. As he has consistently requested for the past five years, Charkaoui asks for a meaningful opportunity to clear his name of precise and defined charges in the context of a fair and open trial.

The new certificate was issued as a result of the Supreme Court decision ruling that the law under which the first certificate was issued was unconstitutional. The Coalition believes that the Harper government has not respected the Supreme Court decision, and that the new law, which entered into force today, remains unconstitutional, unjust and discriminatory. The law and the process which led to its adoption are an insult to democracy. (Analysis of C-3.)

We note that the new public summary of allegations against Mr. Charkaoui no longer includes information from Abu Zubaydah, which was obtained under torture. However, the Coalition is shocked by the fact that the government continues to rely on other information which there are serious grounds to believe was produced under torture. The government cites a confession by Noureddine Nafiaa, a prisoner in Morocco. Media in Morocco and Radio Canada have reported that Nafiaa says he was tortured and forced, blindfolded, to sign a confession that he never saw. His account of torture is corroborated by several reports by independent human rights organizations of the situation in Morocco. The fact that the government relied on torture-information from Zubaydah until this fact was very publicly exposed, and continues to use information from Noureddine Nafiaa, raises very serious questions about the source of other secret information in the file: was it also obtained under torture?

The Coalition is also very concerned that allegations from Ahmed Ressam remain part of the file. Ahmed Ressam, who identified dozens and dozens of people while imprisonned in the United States, under a bargain which lessened his sentence in exchange for information, has publicly retracted his information and is known to have suffered a mental breakdown in prison. Charkaoui and his lawyers have asked to cross-examine Ressam numerous times. This opportunity has always been denied, and it was finally admitted by the government that no sworn testimony existed, and that the information was based on hearsay.

Most pre-occupying is the fact that the public summary contains no proof, simply allegations, hearsay, and fragments of alleged conversations and incidents involving Mr. Charkaoui. Under the new security certificate law, as in the last law, Mr. Charkaoui will be denied access to further, secret information in the file, and thus denied the right to know the case against him - if any case in fact exists. Moreover, it was admitted by CSIS that records of at least some of these interviews were destroyed, meaning that only CSIS summaries - contextless, containing errors of interpretation or bias - remain to support the fragments contained in the summary. Mr. Charkaoui is currently waiting for a Supreme Court decision on CSIS investigative practices in his case, including the destruction of evidence and other indications of a biased investigation.

The crude profiling employed in the summary is of particular concern: acquaintance with other members of Montreal's Muslim community, his marriage, his pizzeria, certain political opinions and religious beliefs and his university studies are all held against Mr. Charkaoui. The profiling relies on a picture - a very distorted picture - of who Mr. Charkaoui is, rather than anything he has done. In a context of racist bias against Muslims and Arabs, innocent facts portrayed in a certain light become evidence against him; misreported and misinterpreted opinions, taken completely out of context, are proof of "terrorism".

Finally, the Coalition notes that the criminal leak of secret information, and Charkaoui's motion for a stay of proceedings based on that leak, are not mentionned in the case summary. In fact, Charkaoui's case has been marked by a leak of secret information, by the use of evidence obtained under torture, by the destruction of evidence by CSIS, public retractions of information in the file, hidden arrest warrants, and the miraculous recovery of long-lost interviews at strategic moments in the case.

The consequences of these proceedings are extremely grave for Mr Charkaoui and his entire family. They already involve a loss of reputation and security which affect his entire family. They could lead to further, indefinite, loss of liberty and invasive surveillance. Under a process that is widely believed to remain unconstitutional, Charkaoui could even be deported from Canada, despite the fact that his life and entire family is established here and that Immigration Canada evaluated in September 2007 that Charkaoui would be at risk of cruel and unusual punishment, torture or death if deported.

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More information or interviews: 514 222 0205

Source:
Coalition Justice for Adil Charkaoui
www.adilinfo.org
justiceforadil@riseup.net
tel. 514 848 7583