Mohammed Harkat was the poster boy for the Canadian far left's efforts to undermine security regulations and our domestic intelligence agencies' ability to protect the nation from terrorist threats.
The rad-left routinely depicted him as the "victim" of an "unconstitutional" process involving secret information. He married a Canadian wife who would do what she could to publicize the supposed hardship of Harkat's house arrest and monitoring conditions and try to tug on the heartstrings of the gullible. But sources in the Canadian security establishment painted a very different picture. From their accounts, Harkat was someone deeply involved with Islamic terrorist organizations and was playing Canada's lax immigration system and Canadians for dupes.
Sources have reported that CSIS and other intelligence services, rather than exaggerating the danger posed by Harkat, actually held back some damaging information about him from the courts in order to protect the sources and means by which it was acquired.
A former CSIS official once said to me, "if you knew what I knew about what Islamic terrrorists are up to in this country, you wouldn't sleep at night." I believe him.
The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled the security certificate issued against accused al-Qaida sleeper agent and Ottawa resident Mohamed Harkat reasonable, making proceedings for his deporation imminent.In a ruling issued Wednesday morning, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the controversial security certificate process......The government has alleged Harkat is an al-Qaida sleeper agent and accused him of running a safe house in Pakistan in his late teens, communicating with senior al-Qaida members, and having links to Al Gama’a al-Islamiyya, an Islamic extremist group based in Egypt...
However, as one might expect, despite the Supreme Court's ruling today, this process could still drag on for years.
Security are violently unconstitutional, which is why they can't be used against citizens. Putting them under immigration law is a cute backdoor to avoid due process and confrontation guarantees. I opposed them when they were used against Ernst Zundel, and I oppose them now.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that what Harkat has been accused of meets the requirements of Canada's "material support" law, and should be tried criminally. After all, Algeria hardly has a solid reputation for keeping track of their lunatics.
And speaking of reputations, CSIS has a well-deserved one for blatant incompetence. They created the Heritage Front and the only thing they've ever successfully infiltrated is the goddamned Reform Party. The odds of their getting played by a grown up intelligence service are remarkably high.
And that goes to why these cases aren't tried in the criminal courts; the evidence likely wouldn't withstand any kind of real scrutiny and would reveal things about CSIS that the government doesn't want advertised.
The Court's decision to review these cases on their merits is unworkable, insane and ensures a backlog that further injures the rights of the accused. And the entire procedural mess just encourages to obtain Canadian citizenship whenever possible.
The security certificates don't apply to citizens. And no, CSIS did not create the Heritage Front. They infiltrated it in a very substantial if controversial way and the aftermath of that was the effective end of it and to a large extent precipitated the end of organized Canadian neo-Nazi and fascist groups. I'd call that a win for the good guys.
ReplyDeleteHarkat's not a citizen and he lied to get in the country. The idea of trying every accused non-citizen terrorist who sets foot in Canada for crimes committed elsewhere would be insane.
As I remember it, the top guys in the Front were all CSIS agents at the end. The same thing happened with the US Communist Party, which became two-thirds undercover FBI agents by the time Hoover died.
ReplyDeleteOkay, so we deport Harkat. Then what? We lose track of him and, donuts to dollars, the Algerians do, too.
On the other hand, material support for terrorism is a crime in this country. and it carries pretty significant time.
Naw, it wasn't a Man Who Was Thursday scenario by any means. CSIS had one person in the organization and he rose to be the #2, which is why he was able to do so much damage to them. They actually wanted him to take over the group for a time when the leader (I think it was Wolfgang Droge) was out of commission (can't remember if it was illness or jail) and he had to get out using a cover story, because for obvious reasons it would be bad having a CSIS operative heading Canada's foremost neo-Nazi group.
ReplyDeleteIt was slightly after that when some disgruntled Liberal party hack in the civil service blew his cover to a Toronto Sun reporter.