Throw out case against accused terrorist, lawyer argues

OTTAWA — The Canadian Security Intelligence Service engaged in such massive destruction of records that the case against accused terrorist Mohamed Harkat should be stayed, his lawyer argued Wednesday in Federal Court.

Ottawa lawyer Matt Webber told Judge Simon Noel that the conduct of CSIS was so “egregious” that there’s no remedy but to throw out the case.

The government alleges that Mr. Harkat, a pizza delivery man in Ottawa, came to Canada in 1995 from Pakistan as an al-Qaida sleeper agent. In 2002, he was declared an alleged national security threat and detained under the security certificate process, which allows the government to present evidence in secret.

On the second day of the first constitutional challenge of Canada’s revised security certificate system, Mr. Webber said the integrity of the administration of justice is at stake.

“They mounted a policy of destruction of evidence … I cannot conceive of a case [where]the state has destroyed all of the records,” he said.

When the judge pointed out that the destruction of the records was not done out of malice, Mr. Webber replied: “they made a mistake but my client should not be on the receiving end of that mistake.”

He argued that what is before the court are summaries of evidence that do not allow Mr. Harkat to challenge the case against him. Mr. Webber said the court cannot rely on “grotesquely incomplete records that were rendered grotesquely incomplete by the conduct of the state.”

On Tuesday, the court heard from another of Mr. Harkat’s lawyers, Norm Boxall, that the special certificate under which Mr. Harkat was detained as an al-Qaida sleeper agent is fatally flawed. Mr. Boxall said the law denies Harkat the basic right to know the case against him, preventing him from mounting a proper defence.

The hearing is to determine whether the government was right to detain him. He faces deportation to his native Algeria if the judge rules against him. Mr. Harkat has denied he was a sleeper agent or that he had any contact with Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network, as the government contends.

Ottawa Citizen