A former senior agent for the Canadian Security Intelligence Agency has alleged a Montreal man suing the federal government for abandoning him to torture and confinement in Sudan was a participant in terrorism and adviser to a notorious terrorist.
Testifying in Federal Court on Thursday, the CSIS witness, identified only as “T,” summed up CSIS concerns about Abousfian Abdelrazik in an exchange with Mr. Abdelrazik’s lawyer.
The witness alleged that Mr. Abdelrazik, 62, attended terrorist training camps, went to the war-torn Russian republic of Chechnya and participated in conflict there.
Speaking in French, the witness said that Mr. Abdelrazik came back from Chechnya with “important sums of money,” but he did not elaborate.
Also the witness, who held various posts including being counterterrorism director-general for the service, alleged that Mr. Abdelrazik encouraged Ahmed Ressam, an acquaintance of Mr. Abdelrazik’s in Montreal, to go to the same training camps he attended.
Mr. Ressam was found guilty of planning to blow up the Los Angeles airport after his 1999 arrest in Seattle in a car filled with explosives.
Summing up his views, the witness, referring to long-standing CSIS interest in Mr. Abdelrazik, said: “These activities led us to believe that, indeed, he was a person involved in jihadist extremism.”
Pressed by Mr. Abdelrazik’s lawyer on whether the evidence behind the allegations would be admissible in court, the witness replied, “I am not a lawyer, a jurist, so I can’t state the admissibility of the information that was provided to us.”
He later noted that the service collects data and information, not evidence.
Paul Champ, Mr. Abdelrazik’s lawyer, asked whether the witness was ever in Chechnya to see Mr. Abdelrazik there, but a federal lawyer objected to the question.
Mr. Abdelrazik, who was born in Sudan and became a Canadian citizen in 1995, has launched a $27-million lawsuit against the federal government and former foreign affairs minister Lawrence Cannon.
He is accusing the defendants of abandoning him in Sudan for six years – from 2003 to 2009 – which he says included detention and torture by Sudan’s intelligence agency over suspected links to terrorism.
He had travelled home to Sudan to visit his ailing mother.
Mr. Abdelrazik’s case alleges the Sudan intelligence agency acted at the request of CSIS, which was monitoring and questioning him in Montreal.
Thursday’s witness, on the second day of testifying, is the first of three CSIS witnesses expected to testify at the proceedings, which began toward the end of October with an eight-week schedule of hearings.
In another exchange, Mr. Champ recalled CSIS officers visiting Mr. Abdelrazik’s Montreal home in February, 2003, a month before he went to Sudan.
The proceedings have heard about CSIS taking an interest in Mr. Abdelrazik over suspicions he might have been connected to Islamic extremism, with warrants used to place him and his family under surveillance and interviews conducted with his family.
Mr. Champ noted that his client had to call the Montreal police because the CSIS agents wouldn’t leave when asked, an incident that the witness confirmed.
The witness recalled that the police told the agents it would be preferable to stop the interview.
Mr. Champ says the agents said they were aware Mr. Abdelrazik was going to Sudan, and one of the agents warned him something negative might happen if he took the trip. The witness confirmed the account, saying the alert was built around Mr. Abdelrazik being a person of interest for CSIS and foreign agents, and because of conflict in Afghanistan.
“The wording was more along the lines of, ‘If I were you, I would not travel,’” said the witness.
But he said the agent that issued the warning, who is set to testify, will provide a fuller account of the matter.
“We knew at the time that certain Canadian citizens who had travelled abroad had been placed under arrest so it was a possibility that if Mr. Abdelrazik travelled to a foreign country, it was a possibility he would be arrested.”
The witness has denied CSIS shared information with the government of Sudan ahead of Mr. Abdelrazik’s trip there.