‘We did everything they asked. We trusted them’
When Canada’s spy services began investigating Abdu Ghanem six years ago, his family repeatedly agreed to talk. Then he was jailed in Algeria and charged with belonging to a terrorist group — and his family believes they were betrayed by the very authorit
MUSCAT, OMAN— Abderrahmane Ghanem’s family say they tried to do everything right, as Canadians, as concerned relatives, sometimes even going beyond expectations, mindful of the fact that Muslims and dual citizens are often regarded with greater suspicion these days.
So when Canada’s police and spy services began investigating Ghanem and his friends six years ago, his parents and siblings agreed to talk with agents from the RCMP and CSIS. Repeatedly. And Ghanem, known to family and friends as “Abdu,” did as well.
They believed Ghanem had nothing to hide, even as his friends from Calgary began to leave one by one for Syria to join extremist groups, including the Al Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra.
But then suddenly last year, Ghanem, 30, an Algerian-born Canadian citizen, was imprisoned and charged — not in Canada, but in Algeria — with belonging to a terrorist group.
An indictment in the case states that Ghanem’s Algerian defence lawyer requested “an important document containing information which was sent from outside Algeria” but was denied.
His family and Canadian lawyers are speaking out for the first time to the Star and the CBC, as they believe Ghanem’s detention is based solely on information provided by Canada’s security services. It’s a damning allegation that comes as Ottawa spends millions of dollars settling cases for the roles CSIS and the RCMP played in the detentions and torture of Canadian citizens held abroad after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Two federal inquiries and multiple lawsuits have condemned the RCMP and CSIS for passing intelligence to regimes and paving the way for the torture of Canadian citizens during interrogations.
Maher Arar received $10.1million in compensation from Canadian taxpayers for his ordeal. Earlier this month, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale and Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland issued a written apology on behalf of the government and made multimillion-dollar settlements to three Canadian men who had been held for months in Syria or Egypt.
“He has done nothing wrong. He hasn’t hurt anyone, but if Canada has information on him they should try him in Canada, not Algeria,” says his 62-year-old father, Mohamed, who has worked tirelessly with his wife, Houira Amiche, for their son’s release.
His family believes Ghanem’s guilt is by association — his story going to the heart of debates confronting Canada and other Western countries: the power of the passport; how security services share information on citizens; and the global nature of terrorism.
“It’s Canada that has the issues, it’s not the Algerians,” Ghanem’s Vancouver-based lawyer Gary Caroline insists. “We believe at a minimum they told the Algerians about him, or at worst, they ask them to investigate him. That’s the crux of the problem, they basically subcontracted the prosecution of Abderrahmane to a country that is not governed by the rule of law, to put it politely.”
“Abderrahmane and the family have committed to voluntarily return to Canada and face any charge that the RCMP or the Crown may make against him — there’s no problem. But his predicament is so divorced from what the accusations are. The accusations are all about Canada and he’s in Algeria.”
MP Omar Alghabra, parliamentary secretary responsible for Canadians held abroad, says he has seen no evidence to show the Algerian’s prosecution is based on Canadian intelligence, but said the case is being closely monitored.
“There are important questions to ask about information-sharing. Where do we draw the line?” said Alghabra in an interview in Ottawa this week. “The government has in place checks and balances as to when and where to share information or not. We have to keep an eye out on the applications of those rules and constantly re-evaluate.”
CSIS spokesperson Tahera Mufti says she cannot comment on Ghanem’s case specifically, but said that the service has “a duty and a responsibility to share threat-related information with its foreign partners in order to mitigate risks to public safety here and abroad.
“If we do so, it is after careful consideration of all legal obligations and associated risks, and includes strict controls on the use and dissemination of information.”
In 2011, as Syria erupted in protest alongside other countries throughout the Middle East and North Africa, the young men began meeting in an apartment above a mosque at 835 8th Ave. S.W., known as the “8th and 8th.”
Most of those friends, who became known as the “Calgary group,” are presumed dead: Damian Clairmont, a troubled convert to Islam who act- ed as one of the leaders in Calgary and was killed fighting for Daesh; the Gordon brothers — Collin and Gregory — also converts, also dead; Salman Ashrafi, who like Clairmont had struggled with mental illness, became a suicide bomber in Iraq in November 2013, killing 46; and Farah Shirdon who, if not dead, faces terrorism charges in Canada if he’s captured or returns home.
There’s also Wassem Al Haj Youcef, who was Clairmont’s roommate and whose name is now revealed publicly for the first time in Algerian court documents seen by the Star. Youcef, a mechanical engineer, left Canada in late 2012. His whereabouts is unknown.
The 8th and 8th mosque shut its doors last week because of the stigma of its association with this case. It was there that Ghanem met Clairmont and Youcef six years ago and why he understandably became someone of interest to CSIS and RCMP. His parents noticed their outgoing son became increasingly sullen, while his brother Zak, who is just a year younger, recalled how argumentative his brother would be. “I would just leave the house. I couldn’t stand listening to him,” he said.
But the most striking change in his personality came after a hiking accident in May 2012.
He had said he was going horseback riding but instead headed to Grizzly Peak, a challenging climb, along with Clairmont and Youcef. They ran into trouble when Youcef’s arm was struck by a rock and in the rush of trying to get help, Ghanem slipped on the ice and tumbled 75 feet. The injured pair were taken to the hospital by Clairmont.
Ghanem’s parents arrived to find their son in the intensive care unit with a head injury, dislocated shoulder, broken arm and ribs. No longer able to drive, he lost a job as a consultant soon after.
“He became too quiet,” his father said. “Then he started experiencing panic attacks almost every night.”
They sent him to a psychiatrist but Ghanem was wary of taking pills.
Meanwhile, Clairmont and Youcef had left Canada, bound for Syria.
Ghanem also left Canada at this point, his father sending him to Algeria to live with his uncles and grandparents, where he could rest and recover. They believed he might have better luck finding an IT job abroad, as the opportunities in the region were better.
Shortly after Ghanem left, his father had his first contact with a CSIS agent, who wanted to know where his son had gone and mentioned they were investigating a potential recruiter of Syrian origin who lived in Calgary. “They were warning me,” he said. “They told me my son is hanging with that guy and that guy is pushing young Calgarians to go to conflict zones.”
Ghanem didn’t stay in Algeria for long, leaving for Cairo to start a call centre. His father — worried about the calls from CSIS — told him to register with the Canadian embassy in Cairo, which Ghanem did.
In Egypt, Ghanem met three times with a CSIS agent who introduced himself as Jason. According to his father, the agent warned Ghanem to not travel to conflict zones, including Syria or Sinai.
In mid-2013, Collin and Gregory Gordon, the brothers from Calgary, stayed for a week at Ghanem’s Cairo apartment. They later left for Syria, where they were reportedly killed. Meanwhile, the RCMP and CSIS continued to reach out to Ghanem’s father, his brother Zak and two of his three sisters. All complied and were questioned about Ghanem’s friends.
By June 2013, with Egypt’s political situation unstable and Ghanem’s business failing, Ghanem returned to Algeria. According to the Algerian indictment, Ghanem spoke with Clairmont via Skype — a claim he denies. But just months later, in September, he was travelling again, this time going to Turkey with his cousin.
For the first time, his Canadian passport was flagged — an indication that Canada believed he was using Turkey as a stopover to Syria.
While the Star could not reach Ghanem for a jailhouse interview, he denied through his family that he had intended to follow his friends to Syria in 2013, but was instead going from one bad business venture to another. Although he did tell his brother Zak during a visit this past weekend that he does “see the world differently now and matured a lot from then.”
From 2013 to 2015, Ghanem continued to have problems with his Canadian passport. In early 2015, he applied to renew his Canadian passport and was forced to use his Algerian passport until Ottawa issued a new one. He claims that in February 2015, when he was in Algiers, he met a CSIS agent who identified himself as Philip, and who said he was working to get Ghanem’s passport application “cleared.” Ghanem told his family he was questioned again but only about the Calgary group — friends he had not seen in at least two years.
Ghanem alleges that Philip threatened him, saying if he did not cooperate he would get countries involved that wouldn’t be “as nice.”
Two weeks later, as Ghanem returned to Oman with his grandmother, he was stopped and questioned by the Algerians for the first time about the Calgary group.
In Oman in the spring of 2015, Ghanem wrote to CSIS director Michel Coulombe, complaining of harassment. “I co-operated with CSIS agents and spoke to them willingly. However, their approach tactics became more aggressive over time, and recently culminated in one of your agents making a direct threat to me,” Ghanem wrote in the letter seen by the Star.
“I do not understand why CSIS is going to such great lengths to accuse me of criminal actions I have no involvement with.” He did not receive a reply. Ghanem continued to move be- tween Algeria and Oman, where his parents now live, using his Algerian passport. He repeatedly contacted Passport Canada for the status of his new passport but was told his application was being processed.
Then suddenly, four years after leaving Canada, three years after his passport was first flagged and long after the deaths of his former friends, Omani police summoned him last May. He was held for a month and, upon release Omani authorities told him he could not renew his visitor’s visa and had to leave.
He went to Algeria, the only place he could travel last minute on his Algerian passport and where he had family (his siblings had temporarily left Canada to study or work abroad by then). His parents accompanied him to Algiers on May 24, 2016.
As Ghanem tried to leave the airport with his family, three plainclothed Algerian agents were waiting for him. He has been held since in an Algerian prison, along with his Algerian cousin, Amiche Belkacem, who was also charged. There is no trial date yet and Algeria is known to hold suspects sometimes for years before prosecuting them.
But Ghanem’s family says they feel their trust was betrayed by co-operating with Canadian authorities. If Ghanem had intended to go to Syria in 2013, they say — it was the attention of the Canadian authorities and restrictions on his passport that disrupted those plans.
“You don’t save someone from drowning and then throw them to the lions,” says Ghanem’s father.
“We did everything they asked. We trusted them.”