Abousfian Abdelrazik - Further Attempts To Return and Judicial Order

Further Attempts To Return and Judicial Order

Out of fears for his safety due to growing media attention, on 28 April 2008, Abdelrazik took refuge in the Canadian embassy in Sudan, a situation the Canadian government described as "temporary". Abdelrazik also brought a legal suit against the Canadian government, seeking his return. On April 18, 2008 the director of consular affairs in the Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed that Mr. Abdelrazik, like all Canadian citizens, was entitled to emergency travel documents to return to Canada. Accordingly, on August 26, 2008, Abdelrazik booked a flight to Canada on Etihad Airways, which was willing to fly him despite the fact that his presence on the U.S. no-fly list meant that any airline which transports him will no longer be able to enter U.S. airspace, thus eliminating most international commercial airlines. His flight was due to leave on September 15, 2008, but Abdelrazik was not able to leave Sudan because Ottawa refused to issue him travel documents. (He was issued a special one-use emergency passport valid for only two weeks after his 2004 release, but at the time could not find an airline willing to transport him.)

On March 12, 2009, 115 supporters of Abdelrazik presented a ticket for his flight to the Canadian government. The government's position was that he needed to have a pre-paid flight ticket, but that any Canadian who donated money to purchase such a ticket could be charged under Canadian anti-terrorism legislation implementing the Security Council's sanctions against people on their blacklist. The donors included former solicitor-general Warren Allmand, political science professor at the University of Toronto Joseph Carens, and Canadian peace activist and former Iraq hostage James Loney.

On April 3, 2009, this letter was received by Abousfian Abdelrazik's lawyer in Ottawa, Canada. Counsel for the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Donna Blois, in a one line letter notifies that the minister has refused to grant an emergency passport pursuant to section 10.1 of the Canadian Passport Order which states: "10.1 Without limiting the generality of subsections 4(3) and (4) and for greater certainty, the Minister may refuse or revoke a passport if the Minister is of the opinion that such action is necessary for the national security of Canada or another country." According to the Lawyer's Weekly, "the government argued that the Charter only guarantees the rights of citizens to enter Canada once they present themselves at the border, and since Abdelrazik is not at the Canadian border, he has no rights.

The House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee passed a motion requesting Abdelrazik testify before it. Member of Parliament Paul Dewar stated the request should require the Government to drop its efforts to block Abdelrazik's return. On May 7 and 8, 2009, the Federal Court heard arguments from Abdelrazik's lawyers, who asked the court to order the federal government to facilitate Abdelrazik's return to Canada. His legal argument was rooted in Section 6 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which states in part that "Every citizen of Canada has the right to enter, remain in and leave Canada."

On June 4, Federal Judge Russel Zinn ruled the government had violated his constitutional rights and must fly him to Canada before July 7. Justice Zinn stated that Mr. Abdelrazik, "is as much a victim of international terrorism as the innocent persons whose lives have been taken by recent barbaric acts of terrorists". The Globe and Mail stated, "In a toughly worded 107-page ruling, Judge Zinn pilloried the government's claims of trying to help Mr. Abdelrazik, concluded that Canadian anti-terrorism agents were implicated in his imprisonment in Sudan, denounced the UN terrorist blacklist as an affront to justice and basic human rights and slammed Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon for high-handedly ignoring due process of law". In response to public demands by opposition parties that Ottawa should stop fighting the case, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said government lawyers would need time to review the 107-page decision before deciding on a course of action.