Court ends Charkaoui's legal saga

Wow is right


Court ends Charkaoui's legal saga

Judge quashes government's case; Montrealer accused of being terrorist says he'd prefer apology to filing suit

By SUE MONTGOMERY, The Gazette
October 15, 2009


A Federal Court judge has killed the federal government's case against Montreal resident Adil Charkaoui once and for all and has blocked all possibility of an appeal.

After 61/2 years of fighting allegations that he was a terrorist, a jubilant Charkaoui could only say "Wow" yesterday.

In her 68-page judgment, Judge Danielle Tremblay-Lamer said it would be understandable if the government believed the court had protected the rights of an individual to the detriment of national security. "But that belief would be wrong," she wrote.

Charkaoui, a Moroccan-born father of three, was arrested in 2003 under a security certificate - a rarely used administrative tool that allows authorities to arrest and detain non-citizens without charge and without showing them or their lawyers the evidence against them.

Charkaoui spent almost two years in prison, then was under virtual house arrest until last month, when Tremblay-Lamer ordered that he be freed of all restrictions, including an electronic ankle bracelet that allowed authorities to track his every move.

Government lawyers were ordered in July to reveal their evidence against Charkaoui; they refused, citing national security concerns. They then withdrew the evidence, rendering the certificate void.

Tremblay-Lamer said the notion of national security is a question of perspective and there can be grey areas and misunderstandings, she wrote. For example, the government's stance on what kind of threat a disclosure of the evidence posed changed from week to week.
She said she carefully examined all the evidence in the government's case against Charkaoui and determined most of it could be disclosed.