Ottawa wants terrorism suspect taken off watch list – But U.S. and France still accuse Canadian of ties to al-Qaeda
By PAUL KORING
From Friday’s Globe and Mail
May 2, 2008 at 4:00 AM EDT
Canada wants Abousfian Abdelrazik taken off the UN Security Council blacklist of suspected terrorists and al-Qaeda members, a senior Foreign Affairs official says.
But “delisting” Mr. Abdelrazik could take months and may be opposed by the United States and France, whose counterterrorism agencies have pegged him as a key al-Qaeda figure and a close associate of Abu Zubaydah, the brains behind the Sept. 11, 2001, suicide hijackings that destroyed New York’s World Trade Center towers and damaged the Pentagon.
Even within the Harper government, there are clashes over delisting, with some agencies saying Mr. Abdelrazik remains a serious security risk.
Mr. Abdelrazik, 46, has been marooned in Sudan for nearly five years by a combination of the Canadian government’s refusal to issue him a new passport, his inclusion on the “no-fly” list as a terrorist suspect and his designation as an al-Qaeda member. A secret Canadian document acknowledges that his incarceration in Sudan was “at our request,” and his passport expired while he was in prison in Sudan in 2004.
. . . CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL STORY .
Short URL: http://tinyurl.com/yeu2m6h
