Ottawa wants imam’s files kept secret
The government has asked the Federal Court for permission to withhold “sensitive” intelligence documents about an Iraniantrained Montreal imam whose passport was revoked last year for national security reasons.
Releasing the five Canadian Security Intelligence Service documents “could injure national security,” the government argued in court filings that were themselves kept secret until a judge lifted the confidentiality of the case.
A hearing on the matter was scheduled for Wednesday. The application for non- disclosure under the Canada Evidence Act was made in the case of Ali Sbeiti, whose Canadian passport was “invalidated” on Nov. 19 without explanation.
After Sbeiti challenged the decision in court, the government released official documents showing he had been described by the RCMP’s Integrated National Security Enforcement Team as a “subject of interest in an ongoing investigation.”
But parts of the file were withheld after CSIS lawyer Tracy McCann gave notice that “sensitive or potentially injurious information contained in five documents may be disclosed” during the court proceedings.
That prompted the government to seek an order from the court that the documents would not have to be disclosed to Sbeiti. The imam has asked for “the entire record” that was before Passport Canada when it cancelled his passport.
Sbeiti was born in Iraq, trained in Iran, holds Lebanese citizenship and is the imam at the Centre Communautaire Musulman de Montreal ( CCMM). Quebec corporate records also list him as president of the Association El- Hidaya, a Montreal non- profit organization that shares an address with the CCMM.
Despite losing his passport, Sbeiti was somehow able to travel to Lebanon, where he signed an affidavit in February saying that while he had been “interviewed many times over the years by Canadian authorities,” he had no idea why the government took away his travel document.
“To this day I still do not know why the authorities invalidated my passport,” he wrote in the affidavit, sworn before a notary public in Beirut. “Like any Canadian citizen, I wish to have the right to travel with my Canadian passport.”
Federal security officials have been using passport seizures and revocations to deal with the increasing number of “high- risk travellers” — Canadians who have gone overseas to join such terror groups as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
The Conservatives have tabled legislation that would allow officials to revoke passports for up to 10 years for security reasons. The bill would also allow the government to withhold the information upon which such decisions were based — although judges would still be allowed to see it.