Abousfian Abdelrazik files suit, on serious charges.

Mr. Abdelrazik, who spent nearly six years in prison or forced exile while his attempts to come home were thwarted, returned to Canada in June after Ottawa was ordered by a federal judge to repatriate the 47-year-old Sudanese-Canadian.

The lawsuit filed Wednesday seeks more than double the $10.5-million the Harper government paid Maher Arar, the Canadian tortured in Syria. The role of Canada’s spies in Mr. Abdelrazik’s case was “far worse,” than in the Arar case, said Paul Champ, one of his lawyers. “Its unprecedented that Canadian officials were directly responsible for the torture of a Canadian citizen.”

Apropos of Abousfian Abdelrazik (remember him?) and the questions still unanswered, here is the text of questions posed by Stephen Harper for Prime Minister Jean Chretien on Nov. 5, 2003.

Maher Arar was imprisoned and tortured in a Syrian prison. Canadian officials may have been involved in his deportation. Yesterday in an all party committee of the House, members of all parties basically unanimously demanded that the government hold a public inquiry into this situation. Why is the government refusing to have a public inquiry to lay to rest some of these allegations?

Mr. Speaker, it is completely acceptable that we would get the facts from other countries but we should be getting the facts from our own government of its role in this case. Consular officials visited Mr. Arar in New York and Syria, yet somehow the Prime Minister, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Solicitor General all refused to accept any responsibility. What is the government hiding? Why does the government refuse to disclose all of the facts of its role in this case?

Mr. Speaker, on this side we are prepared to have a public inquiry to get to the bottom of the truth. The government should be prepared to do exactly the same thing. Mr. Arar, members of the opposition and members of the government are asking for a public inquiry. The Prime Minister’s own whip says that no stone should be left unturned. I believe the Prime Minister’s successor will hold a public inquiry if he does not, so will the Prime Minister, for the benefit of all of us–

Apropos of all sorts of things, here is Stephen Harper’s answer to a National Post questionnaire in 2004 that asked “What have we learned from the William Sampson affair?”

Stephen Harper, Canadian Alliance: “We’ve learned that “soft power” doesn’t work when dealing with regimes that only understand hard power. Liberals cling to this doctrine, but in practice it has failed time and again. The highest duty of government is the protection of its citizens. Canada must ensure consequences when foreign governments torture or kill our people.”

Dutifully covered by Kady, video of Abousfian Abdelrazik’s opening statement to the press this morning is available in two parts, here and here.

More from Paul Koring, Joanna Smith, Terry Pedwell and Andrew Mayeda.

An official response from foreign affairs to the Globe’s latest report on Abousfian Abdelrazik’s exile.

The inference drawn in today’s Globe and Mail article is not supportable and is in fact irresponsible. There was no such offer, as was suggested in the reporter’s questions. Despite DFAIT’s unequivocal statement to that effect in our response to the Globe and Mail reporter, this conjecture was reported as fact.

We reject the premise of the reporter’s question and the inferences he drew in the subsequent article.

Furthermore,  the facts of this case do not support such an inference. Mr Abdelrazik was released from custody in Sudan in July 2006, despite his inability to return to Canada at that time.

Following his release, he lived openly and at large in Sudan with his family, during which time he remarried and had a child.

Paul Koring delves deeper into the case of Abousfian Abdelrazik.

The Harper government was warned shortly after it came to office in 2006 that Sudan’s notorious military intelligence agency was ready to “disappear” Abousfian Abdelrazik, a Canadian citizen, unless Ottawa allowed him to go home, The Globe and Mail has learned. Sudan wanted to “deal with this case for once and for all: we judge as significant their verbal reference to a ‘permanent solution,’” Ottawa was bluntly told by Canadian diplomats in the Sudanese capital, according to documents now in possession of The Globe.

Instead of protesting the threat or warning Sudan – a regime notorious for its human rights abuses – that Ottawa would hold it responsible if harm came to a Canadian citizen held in one of its prisons, diplomats in Khartoum were ordered by a senior Canadian intelligence official to deliver a non-committal response “notwithstanding the expected displeasure of the Sudanese.”

Abousfian Abdelrazik’s homecoming, twittered.

More from Canadian Press, Canwest and CTV. Video of the scene here. And, from earlier this week, Maher Arar’s plea for greater oversight of our national security agency.

Canadians deserve to know why so many of this country’s citizens, all of Muslim background, have been imprisoned and tortured abroad. Human-rights organizations, activists and national-security experts have been calling for the current government to establish the credible oversight agency that was recommended by Judge O’Connor several years ago. Their calls have landed on deaf ears. How many more victims will it take before our government realizes that it needs to act?

While Gerald Caplan details his outrage, Paul Koring raises new questions about this country’s treatment of Abousfian Abdelrazik. Last month, Ben Peterson raised a question that may soon be operative here too: should we consider prosecuting any Canadian officials complicit in torture?

Yes, high-level arrests could spark political controversy. But bypassing the law for fear of a backlash is cowardly and counterproductive. It would, in the long run, weaken our collective ability to fight for justice in the face of tyranny. It would undermine the rule of law. While the prosecution of high-level officials should never be encouraged, if they broke the law, they broke the law. Surely our democracy is strong enough to withstand the fallout…

Perhaps, once the staggering factual and legal complexities involved are sorted through, it will be determined that no Canadian officials should be prosecuted. I hope that’s the case. But these mazes should be navigated not with an eye for history alone, but also to potentially prosecute those involved.

Glen Pearson salutes Paul Dewar.

But the one person who stuck on this file and deserves full praise for the victory yesterday was the NDP’s Paul Dewar. Simply put, I found him indefatigable in the cause of justice for Abdelrazik. And I speak from personal experience, as we both sit on the Foreign Affairs Committee.  Against all odds, Dewar exhausted every parliamentarian option, time after time, not just in an attempt to exonerate an innocent citizen, but to prove that the Canadian parliament could be relevant in such a case. I watched as the government members of the committee fought him vociferously. But he worked the system  - very well. In key votes on the case, the three opposition parties worked together and won by one vote each time, Paul’s example being the key cause. I witnessed the discouragement on his face every time as the government refused to abide by the will of the committee on this. I would even text him on his Blackberry during committee in an attempt to keep him assured.  The hardest day came only three weeks ago, when the Foreign Affairs Minister pointed his finger in anger at Dewar over the issue, in a manner that was beneath the conduct of someone in such an exalted position.

Awhile after the Justice Minister’s unexpected announcement, Paul Dewar stood and asked if Stockwell Day or Vic Toews had, in their previous portfolios, received a request from the U.S. ambassador or the White House that Abousfian Abdelrazik be prevented from returning to Canada.

This would seem to be what prompted that question.

The Scene. It was not otherwise a particularly remarkable day.

The Liberals persisted in asking the government to account for the current shortage of medical isotopes. The government insisted on doing no such thing. Jack Layton pouted about not receiving an invitation to the Prime Minister’s afternoon tea with Michael Ignatieff the other day. The Prime Minister jabbed his finger and waved his arms and declared the NDP an annoyance. John Baird scorned Mr. Layton with one answer and congratulated him on the birth of his granddaughter—Beatrice Dora Campbell, eight pounds and one ounce, born 12:03am Wednesday morning to Jack’s daughter Sarah—with the next.

Not even the early appearance of Irwin Cotler, the former justice minister rising immediately after Michael Ignatieff had dispensed with his three questions, seemed a cause for much concern. With the House breaking tomorrow for the summer, it appeared the Liberals were merely giving the venerable old lawyer a ceremonial opportunity to register a couple long-held grievances.

He asked first about Omar Khadr. Deepak Obhrai, the foreign affairs minister’s parliamentary secretary, rose with the perfunctory answer.

Mr. Cotler moved to the case of Abousfian Abdelrazik, the Canadian still bunking at our embassy in Sudan, awaiting an answer to the cruel riddle of his situation. “Mr. Speaker, Abousfian Abdelrazik is another abandoned Canadian citizen. In spite of the Federal Court’s severe rebuke, this government continues to violate Mr. Abdelrazik’s rights by refusing to bring him home,” Mr. Cotler posited. “The government has had two weeks to read a judgment that is unequivocal in its findings of fact and conclusions of law. Every day it waits is a continued violation of Mr. Abdelrazik’s rights. Does the government plan on appealing the court’s decision while delaying justice at Mr. Abdelrazik’s expense, or will it heed the court’s order and immediately return Mr. Abdelrazik home to Canada?”

It was here that something truly astonishing happened. Continue…

The federal court orders Abousfian Abdelrazik back to Canada.

“Mr. Abdelrazik’s Charter right to enter Canada has been breached by the respondents,” Federal Court Judge Russel Zinn said in a judgment released today. “ Mr. Abdelrazik is entitled to an appropriate remedy which, in the unique circumstances of his situation, requires that the Canadian government take immediate action so that Mr. Abdelrazik is returned to Canada.”