A new report suggests CSIS helped prevent Abousfian Abdelrazik from returning to Canada at a time when the CIA openly sought his rendition to Guantanamo Bay, an allegation his lawyer says could affect an ongoing lawsuit against the federal government.
Abdelrazik is a Sudanese-born Canadian citizen who spent nearly six years in forced exile in his birth country, while he fought to obtain the clearance he needed to return home to Montreal.
Between September 2003 and July 2004, Abdelrazik was imprisoned by Sudanese officials, allegedly tortured, eventually released and left to fend for himself in a country he would soon find out he could not leave.
The Globe and Mail reports that it has obtained internal CSIS documents that suggest the spy agency played a key role in Abdelrazik's long exile.
According to the newspaper, the documents indicate CSIS learned of Abdelrazik's pending release from Sudanese custody and determined he was going to board a pair of flights that would take him home to Canada. A call was then made to Transport Canada.
"It's unclear what transpired during the conversation, but soon afterward both Air Canada and Lufthansa abruptly cancelled Mr. Abdelrazik's ticket home," according to the Globe and Mail report.
Abdelrazik would not step foot on Canadian soil for almost five more years, a period in which he was also placed on a UN no-fly list for alleged ties to al Qaeda.
Paul Champ, a lawyer who has helped represent Abdelrazik in an ongoing lawsuit against the federal government, said the CSIS documents give credence to their belief that the spy agency was involved in keeping their client stranded in Sudan.
"It has always been our theory of the case that, while consular officials were working to help Mr. Abdelrazik in 2004, CSIS was working behind the scenes to sabotage any attempts to get him home," Champ told CTVNews.ca by email on Friday morning.
"There are many other documents that we do have which strongly support that finding. The Federal Court did not squarely place the blame on CSIS, but it did find in a judgment in 2009 that the Canadian government was trying to prevent his return from 2003 to 2009."
The Globe and Mail says the CSIS documents also firmly indicate that the CIA wanted to take custody of Abdelrazik and move him to Guantanamo Bay.
Champ said the report goes further than that, suggesting that when CSIS helped put the brakes on Abdelrazik's repatriation, it was helping the CIA buy time for its desired rendition.
"It's shocking and shows an Agency that is reckless and out of control," Champ said in the email.
Abdelrazik is currently seeking $27 million in damages from the federal government in a case that is still before the courts.
He has been formally cleared by CSIS and the RCMP of terrorist allegations, though his name remains on the UN no-fly list, despite his persistent attempts to have it removed.
