terrorism 'complicity' emerges as key issue in mohamed harkat deportation case
the canadian government has been trying to deport harkat, a convention refugee, to his native algeria for 22 years.
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a 2017 file photo of mohamed harkat as the ottawa resident arrived at the supreme court of canada.
sean kilpatrick
/
the canadian press
federal lawyers say ottawa’s mohamed harkat should be deported for “facilitating” terrorist acts — even if he did not personally engage in an act of violence. the federal government has been trying to deport harkat, a convention refugee, to his native algeria for the past 22 years.
at a federal court hearing tuesday, held to consider the latest step in harkat’s marathon deportation process, federal lawyers said harkat’s own conduct facilitated terrorist acts and made him complicit in them.
“the absence of evidence that mr. harkat committed any specific act of terrorism does not make his role as the operator of the guesthouse any less significant or severe,” federal lawyer bernard assan argued in a written submission.
assan told court such guesthouses played “a pivotal role” in the secure, international movement of terrorists.
in december 2010, a federal court judge found that harkat operated a guesthouse in peshawar, pakistan, for chechen rebel leader ibn khattab and helped move mujahedeen fighters in and out of training camps in afghanistan.
an immigration official, known as a minister’s delegate, then had to decide if harkat, a convention refugee, should be allowed to remain in canada given the “nature and severity” of his acts.
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the unnamed minister’s delegate ordered harkat deported, saying that, as a member of the khattab group, he was complicit in the terrorist acts of feared chechen rebel leader, shamil basayev, whom khattab supported. basayev was responsible for some of the bloodiest acts of the chechen conflict.
the minister’s delegate also placed the khattab and basayev groups within the larger terror network — described as “a system of systems” — then allied with osama bin laden.
tuesday’s federal court hearing is part of a judicial review of the delegate’s opinion that harkat should be deported despite harkat’s contention that he will be will be tortured or persecuted in algeria.
federal court judge john norris must decide if that opinion, issued in october 2018, is legally fair and reasonable.
harkat’s lawyer, barbara jackman, urged the judge tuesday to quash the minister’s opinion, arguing it was completely unreasonable to deport a convention refugee to a country where he faced the possibility of torture based on links to terrorism that required what she called “a hop, skip and a jump.”
jackman said the government had failed to establish any direct connection between harkat’s work at the peshawar guesthouse and any actual crime. harkat worked at the guesthouse for 15 months.
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“i don’t think that giving someone a bed contributes to a crime,” jackman told norris.
jackman argued the government’s “hyperbolized” case against harkat is built on speculation, not facts, about harkat’s connection to terrorism.
the question of harkat’s level of complicity emerged as a key issue at tuesday’s hearing.
norris asked assan what “theory of liability, of complicity” the government was relying in order to connect harkat to acts of chechen or al-qaida terrorism that occurred in the years after he left the guesthouse.
the most notorious act of chechen terrorism, the beslan school massacre, occurred in september 2004, long after harkat was in canada, norris noted.
in answer, assan pointed to the “ripple effect” of providing terrorists with secure places to stay while en route to training camps or to chechen battlefields. such material support, he said, helped to sow the seeds of terrorism.
norris is expected to hand down his decision in the long-running case sometime next year.
harkat went to pakistan in 1990 after fleeing his native algeria as a university student opposed to its military-backed government. he arrived in canada in 1995, obtained his refugee status and was arrested in ottawa on the strength of a security certificate in december 2002.
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andrew duffy is a national newspaper award-winning reporter and long-form feature writer based in ottawa. to support his work, including exclusive content for subscribers only, sign up here: ottawacitizen.com/subscribe
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