Ottawa seeks delay in torture lawsuit
$27-million civil suit filed nine years ago by Sudanese-Canadian
OTTAWA— A judge is weighing whether to grant the federal government an indefinite delay in a torture compensation lawsuit that has dragged on for nine years and is unlikely now to be resolved for many more months or years.
Federal Court Justice Martine St-Louis was supposed to start hearing witnesses in the 10week civil trial of a lawsuit filed by Sudanese-Canadian Abousfian Abdelrazik that was scheduled to start Monday. But she adjourned in order to consider the unusual request on the day the long-running lawsuit was to finally begin.
Abdelrazik is suing the federal government for $27-million in redress, claiming Canadian CSIS officials were complicit in his 2003 arrest in Sudan.
He said actions by CSIS, including sending questions to his Sudanese jailers and dispatching CSIS officials to interview him in jail, were responsible for what turned into a sixyear long ordeal of detention and alleged torture, house arrest in Sudanese government facilities, and finally his decision to seek asylum inside the Canadian embassy in Khartoum for a year.
Canadian authorities were finally forced to issue Abdelrazik a passport to allow him to return to Canada in 2009 after a federal court ruled the government had violated his Charter right to enter Canada.
However, a federal lawyer told the court Monday the passage of time in the lawsuit filed in 2009 means heavily redacted documents that have already been released to Abdelrazik’s legal team must be given a second look to ensure the most complete record possible is available for the trial.
In other words, not necessarily to further redact the documents, but to confirm what’s been released, said Abdelrazik’s lawyer Paul Champ.
Lawyer Sandy Graham could not say how long it would take to complete the review under provisions of the Canada Evidence Act. That review would be conducted by a different Federal Court judge.
Champ asked St-Louis to allow the trial to proceed.
In an interview, he said the role played by Canadian officials is well-documented in thousands of heavily edited emails and documents already part of the court record, and argues there is enough evidence available to support Abdelrazik’s claim the government directly contributed, if not turned a blind eye, to what was happening to him.
For example, in one email written in 2004, a senior CSIS official vented frustration at the prospect Abdelrazik might soon be released by Sudanese officials: “So much for jail forever,” the unidentified official fumed.
Filed as part of the court record, it goes on to accuse Canadian consular officials who were seeking Abdelrazik’s release of “just wanting to cover their asses.”
Other documents reveal Sudanese authorities told Canadian consular staff they were only holding Abdelrazik at the request of the Canadian security agency.
Abdelrazik, his lawyer, and Amnesty International say it, and a trove of other documents in the case, display a casual or callous indifference by CSIS toward the man’s plight that led directly to his detention and torture in Sudan. Abdelrazik spoke to the Star outside court Monday of his frustration with the federal Justice Department, which he believes is “continuing to play a game with me.”
Ottawa’s request for an indefinite delay follows other moves in recent weeks in which the federal government has admitted it failed to disclose to Abdelrazik roughly 500 Privy Council documents potentially relevant to his case, and sought to shield the identities of five current and former CSIS employees from the public when they testify.
In an agreed statement of facts in the case, the government acknowledges CSIS officials sent questions to his Sudanese jailers, and twice travelled to Khartoum to interview him in the presence of Sudanese officials about his suspected terrorist connections in Canada.