Khartoum limbo

With a seemingly innocent Montrealer
stuck in Sudan, his supporters dare the feds
to charge them for trying to bring him home

CLEARED BUT STRANDED: Abousfian Abdelrazik

by CHRISTOPHER HAZOU

“Bring it on,” says a defiant Diana Bronson. “If they want to prosecute me, I’ll be happy to take them on.”

Bronson, a researcher with a Montreal-based non-governmental organization, is one of more than 100 Canadians who face up to 10 years imprisonment under federal anti-terrorism legislation for donating money for a plane ticket to bring Montrealer Abousfian Abdelrazik home from Sudan.

In yet another case with disturbing parallels to the Maher Arar scandal, Abdelrazik was imprisoned by Sudanese authorities in 2003 at the behest of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), who suspected him of involvement “with terrorist elements.” Since cleared by Sudanese and Canadian officials, he’s been unable to return home due to a series of obstacles put in place by successive Canadian governments. “They’ve created a number of hoops for this man to jump through when clearly he’s already in a very difficult situation,” Bronson says.

Abdelrazik, a Canadian citizen, was detained in September 2003 while on a visit to his country of birth to see his mother. He spent nearly a year in Kober prison in Khartoum, where he says he was interrogated by CSIS agents and tortured, before being declared innocent and released by the Sudanese.

When he tried to fly home, he discovered that he was on a U.S. no-fly list. It soon became obvious that the government of then prime minister Paul Martin wasn’t eager to have him back, refusing to help charter a plane or facilitate travel on a commercial airline. Broken mentally and physically, and with no money, Abdelrazik lived for more than a year under virtual house arrest in a home owned by the Sudanese police. Despite his exoneration, he was jailed again at the request of CSIS in October 2005. After 10 months, during which time he says he was subjected to further beatings and torture, he was released once more.

Finally, in April 2008, under mounting public pressure, the Harper government said it would provide Abdelrazik with emergency travel documents. Shortly afterwards, he was granted temporary refuge in the Canadian embassy. When he booked a flight a few months later though, the government said it wouldn’t issue the necessary papers until his ticket was fully paid. But Abdelrazik had no money and the government threatened to use anti-terrorism laws to prosecute anyone who assisted him.

Undeterred, his supporters raised funds and purchased a ticket for a flight leaving Khartoum on April 3—despite the fact that Passport Canada has yet to issue the documents he needs and the government won’t say whether it will. “The Sudanese, CSIS and the RCMP have cleared him,” says Audrey Brousseau, one of Abdelrazik’s Ottawa-based lawyers. “But for political or other reasons, the government doesn’t want to let him back into the country.”

An application has been filed in federal court to force the government to issue Abdelrazik a temporary passport, but a decision won’t be made until after his scheduled travel date.

Despite the government’s threats, Brousseau doesn’t think that Bronson and her fellow donors, who include senior citizens, university professors and prominent figures like former federal Liberal cabinet minister Warren Allmand, will be charged. “They have the authority to do it,” she says. “[But] politically, it would be a complete disaster.”

Both the Department of Foreign Affairs and Passport Canada declined to comment, citing the ongoing legal proceedings and the federal Privacy Act.