115 donors kick in for airline ticket

[Bulldog]

From across Canada, donors have given from $10 to $400 to buy a $997 airline ticket so Abousfian Abdelrazik can get out of Sudan.

Technically, all 115 donors risk prosecution because they're helping the only Canadian citizen labelled an Al-Qa'ida operative by Washington.

But donors like Gerald Caplan of Richmond Hill, Ont., a consultant to United Nations agencies on Africa, said any such move would only add another bizarre chapter to a Kafkaesque saga.

"This is such a twisted story - how many more lives do we have to destroy in the name of anti-terrorism?" he asked.

City councillor Warren Allmand, another donor, said Abdelrazik's treatment is "part of an illegal pattern of the Canadian government targeting its own residents for overseas detention."

"Canada must end its rendition program," Allmand stated.

Supporters showed the ticket to reporters yesterday and said they hoped Canadian officials would issue an emergency passport - his passport expired while in jail - so he can fly home April 3.

But a Foreign Affairs spokesperson would not say whether such a document would be issued.

"We are continuing to provide Mr. Abdelrazik with consular assistance and the matter is currently under litigation - we can't comment further," Emma Welford said in Ottawa.

Abdelrazik, 46, a Canadian of Sudanese origin, was jailed in 2003 while on a visit to his ailing mother.

He was named by the Bush administration as an associate of Al-Qa'ida, and put on a UN terrorist blacklist.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service is alleged to have asked the Sudanese to detain Abdelrazik "for suspected involvement with terrorist elements," but CSIS denied this.

Abdelrazik says the Sudanese beat and tortured him during 11 months in jail, then cleared him of any terrorist involvement. But his attempt to fly home in 2004 was stymied when Lufthansa and Air Canada refused to accept him as a passenger because he was on a "no fly" list.

He was re-arrested in October 2005 and held for an additional 10 months, only to be cleared again.

In April 2008, Abdelrazik sought refuge in the Canadian embassy in Khartoum and in the fall was again unable to fly home because Passport Canada insisted he have a fully paid ticket before it will issue emergency travel documents.

The ticket cost was a pretext, said Samaa Elibyari Samaa, of the Canadian Council of Muslim Women, describing his plight as "the nightmare of every Muslim woman, man, and family."

iblock@thegazette.canwest.com


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