By PAUL KORING and OMAR EL AKKAD

April 29, 2008 at 8:53 PM EDT

The Harper government granted terrorist suspect Abousfian Abdelrazik, “temporary safe haven” Tuesday in Canada’s Khartoum embassy and said it was “reviewing his case,” but stopped short of agreeing to help him return home.

Mr. Abdelrazik, who has been marooned in Sudan for years, spent nearly two years in prison there, was denied a new Canadian passport and was unable to return to his family in Montreal, walked into the Canadian embassy Tuesday morning and said he wanted to stay there.

A day earlier, The Globe and Mail published a detailed account of Mr. Abdelrazik’s predicament, drawing on more than 1,000 pages of government documents that detailed his multi-year ordeal during which the government repeatedly assured him that there was nothing it could do to remove him from international blacklists fingering him as a terrorist.

The government abruptly changed tack on Tuesday.

Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier decided to grant Mr. Abdelrazik “temporary safe haven,” said the minister’s spokesman, Neil Hrab.

“We are currently reviewing his case,” Mr. Hrab added.

And in a carefully worded response, the government acknowledged that it understood “Mr. Abdelrazik is unable to return to Canada of his own accord.”

The response also acknowledged that repatriating the Canadian citizen would require either a government aircraft to circumvent no-fly lists or a serious effort to have him removed from the United Nations list of alleged al-Qaeda suspects.

For the government to provide even “temporary safe haven” on what is Canadian territory, the embassy in Khartoum, to Mr. Abdelrazik while the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service continues to finger him as a terrorist suspect suggests that the designation may be under review.

“He doesn’t want to live out his days in the embassy,” said Yavar Hameed, an Ottawa lawyer representing Mr. Abdelrazik. “That’s just a stopgap measure. … What he wants is to come home.” Mr. Hameed said the government should send a plane “to fly him out of there within days.”

As the government fended off questions and CSIS refused to say why it originally labelled Mr. Abdelrazik a terrorism suspect and al-Qaeda member, Opposition Leader Stéphane Dion said Mr. Abdelrazik “should be authorized to return to Canada,” adding that if there are serious allegations against him he should be charged and tried “in Canada.”

The Harper government has failed to protect Canadians overseas, Mr. Dion said in Quebec City. “The government should be much more determined in protecting the rights of Canadians everywhere in the world,” he said.

CSIS spokeswoman Manon Berube said “on the matter of Mr. Abdelrazik’s status as a terrorist suspect, CSIS cannot confirm or deny any specific operational investigation.”

Mr. Abdelrazik, walked into the Canadian embassy at about 10:40 a.m., Tuesday, local time. According to Mr. Hameed, one of the Canadian diplomats stationed in Khartoum, Eric O’Connor, warned him to be careful “on the streets” because of the attention now focused on his case by reports of his predicament.

“I don’t intend to leave the embassy,” Mr. Abdelrazik told the consul.

Mr. O’Connor said he needed to seek advice from Ottawa and hours later confirmed to Mr. Abdelrazik that he would be allowed to stay temporarily. Embassy staff bought him a pizza. Security personnel guarding the embassy were told that Mr. Abdelrazik was remaining inside.

The government’s carefully chosen phase, “temporary safe haven,” stops far short of “sanctuary” or “refuge,” both of which could be construed by Sudan as suggesting the Canadian government believed Mr. Abdelrazik needs protection. Sudan has already issued documents saying it believes the accusations that he is a terrorist and al-Qaeda member are groundless.

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