Feds ordered to turn over leaked files
Canadian man suing Ottawa over documents that branded him and another as terrorists
A Canadian man the federal government once accused of terrorism has won a small victory in his ongoing legal battle for compensation for damaging leaks of government documents to the media.
In a recent decision, a Federal Court judge ordered Ottawa to give Abousfian Abdelrazik information about similar leaks concerning Adil Charkaoui, another Canadian the government branded as having terrorist ties.
The secret documents leaked in 2007 and in August 2011disclosed, in part, a discussion Abdelrazik apparently had with Charkaoui about hijacking and blowing up an Air France plane from Montreal to Paris.
“The facts common to both leaks do create a context of relevancy,” Judge Simon Noël ruled. “Both the 2007 and 2011 leaks relate to the same discussion. Another common fact is that both leaks were published by journalists of La Presse.”
Abdelrazik, 53, a Sudanese-born Canadian, gained widespread attention when Ottawa refused for six years to facilitate his return from Sudan, where he was imprisoned and, he says, tortured. The Federal Court ruled in 2009 that Canadian antiterrorism agents had played a role in his detention, and criticized Ottawa’s handling of the situation.
He is suing Ottawa for damages arising from the 2011leak, claiming it contained prejudicial and unsubstantiated allegations aimed at convincing the public that he was in fact a terrorist.
Additionally, the unproven suit as- serts the government’s attempt to discredit him formed part of a pattern of behaviour aimed at smearing terrorism suspects. To bolster his case, Abdelrazik requested government documents related to any investigations into leaks that occurred between 2003 and 2005 about Maher Arar, tortured in Syria, and about Charkaoui in June 2007.
Noël disagreed with the government in part. He ordered the government to produce reports on any criminal and administrative investigations and any corrective measures related to the 2007 leak.
In siding with the government in part, Noël said the Arar leaks were at least a decade old and were investigated by the RCMP. He noted the Arar case was the subject of a comprehensive public inquiry, which harshly criticized the role of Canadian intelligence agents in his abuse in Syria.