Mahjoub Hearing, Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Hello:

Mary Foster wrote on Monday June 20: ‘was anyone able to go today? how did it go? Very important witnesses from CSIS and CBSA will be on the stand to testify about their complicity in re-isssuing a security certificate that is mostly (entirely?) based on information derived from torture.’

I was unable to go Monday and don’t know if anyone else went, but I did attend today - Tuesday for a few hours. Mary is correct. There are some supposedly high ranking witnesses being heard this week and next week. Yesterday – Monday, the witness was the present Director of CSIS, Richard Fadden. All that I heard about him was that he was ‘all over the place’ perhaps meaning evasive, but I wasn’t there to hear him. If any of you were, I would appreciate a brief report.

I actually attended two court hearings today; the first was at Old City Hall Court for the sentencing hearing of Jaggi Singh of Montreal who was charged with encouraging people to take down the fence at last June’s G20 event. The judge read his various options and mentioned about 200 or so letters that people had written to the court in support of Jaggi. The courtroom was packed. The crown was asking for a six month sentence, but perhaps due to public interest, Jaggi was placed on probation for one year with conditions, but was given ‘time served’ and no further jail time. His supporters were very pleased and Jaggi spoke at an impromptu press conference outside the court house. He spoke not only about himself but about the rights of communities to decide what their streets will be like – not governments and not the courts.

This kind of interest may be a lesson to those of us trying to support Mr. Mahjoub.

At about 11:30 am I walked over to Federal Court and stayed until 3 pm (with a one hour lunch break). One other supporter came for about ¾ hour. I saw and heard Public Counsel Paul Slansky cross-examine Mr. Flanagan, a retired manager for CSIS. The questioning had to do with an agreement in 2006 between CSIS and CBSA to have a CSIS Collector Agent (CA), I think, work in what was referred to as a ‘bubble’ because this agent had the task of intercepting (listening in) phone messages of Mr. Mahjoub and Mr. Jaballah, both of Toronto. These messages were supposed to be copied to a CD and passed on to CBSA. The problem that is being probed by the cross-examination is – what did they do with calls that were between Mr. Mahjoub and his lawyers. A CSIS agent in a previous hearing admitted that CSIS did indeed record solicitor-client conversations. Public Counsel asked questions of witness Mr. Flanagan who was apparently responsible for CSIS policy in this matter. However Mr. Flanagan was not very cooperative, launching into long vague, contradictory answers that finally caused Mr. Slansky to lose his patience and ask the witness to just answer the questions with a short answer or a yes or no. At least a couple of questions were objected to on the basis of answers being ‘secret evidence’ and therefore of national security importance. One of these questions simply asked for a point of policy that should be public. At one point Public Counsel pointed out to the witness that he had contradicted an earlier answer and asked for and had the court reporter read back the previous question and answer which was indeed a contradiction. Some of the vagueness was the witness’s inability to say conclusively if the CA was indeed operating in a bubble (strictly as an agent for CBSA and not for CSIS). One word that the witness decided had more than one meaning was ‘relevancy’. Relevancy at first was supposed to mean – any intercepts that would indicate a threat to Canadian security – these would have to be reported to CSIS. However, the witness then added the meaning – ‘intelligence value’, meaning that an intercept, even one between a client and his lawyer – would have relevancy if it had intelligence value. At the point just before Judge Blanchard called the lunch break, the witness was so confused that he said he could no longer answer Public Counsel’s questions. The hearing did of course continue in the afternoon.

What I think is being revealed by the very strong probing of Mr. Slansky is that CSIS policies on intercepting solicitor-client conversations are and have been woefully wanting. We are hoping that the judge sees this as well.

I will be away for most of the next three weeks – accompanying my brother to a family wedding in B.C. and then some other responsibilities and family events. Mr. Mahjoub thought these hearings will end by mid-July.

Court will go on tomorrow – Wednesday, June 22, 9:30 am but not Thursday or Friday so if anyone can attend tomorrow – Wednesday that would be good.

For the week of June 27, hearings are scheduled for Monday June 27 through Thursday June 30, with hearings beginning at 9:30 am.

Please attend even if for a short time. It looks so much better if interest is shown – as it was in the Jaggi Singh case.

Hearings are at Federal Court, 180 Queen St. W., 6^th floor, near Osgoode station on the University line.

Mahjoub Hearing Schedule – Week of June 20, 2011

The Mahjoub court schedule for next week is Monday June 20, Tuesday June 21, Wednesday June 22, all at 9:30 am at Federal Court at 180 Queen St. W., near the Osgoode station on University line. Various witnesses from CBSA and CSIS are scheduled to testify about how the security certificates got signed.

Please attend if you have some time.

Murray

Mahjoub Hearing, Thursday, June 9, 2011

I arrived at court at about 11:30 am. Having tried to go to the Hassan Diab bail hearing nearby at Osgoode Hall, but they apparently began at 10 am and were finished by 10:30 am. I haven’t heard how it went.

A bit of update from last week: I missed Tuesday through Friday last week while in Ottawa. A Mr. Bush from Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) was the main witness along with Mr. Vrbanic, Manager of CSIS Toronto office. Public Counsel Paul Slansky carried the case last week and today and has been probing matters related to Solicitor-Client wiretap interceptions and circumstances surrounding the signing of Security Certificates by CIC Minister Diane Finley and former Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day which have had questions raised by recent disclosures as I mentioned in the May 30 report.

I was the only supporter there today. P.C. Paul Slansky was finishing up his examination of witness Mr. Vrbanic, Manager of the CSIS Toronto office. Paul asked probing questions about whether CSIS had policies around Solicitor-Client phone conversation interceptions and exactly what constituted this type of interception – for instance did they listen to husband-wife conversations and were any of these messages being relayed by Mr. Mahjoub’s wife to M.; or would language interpretation by stepson Haney be included? Mr. Vrbanic replied that family members did sign consent forms. Ministers Counsel Mr. Tyndale objected to several of these questions as being too hypothetical.

P.C. moved on to questions about the circumstances surrounding the signing of the Security Certificate around the dates Feb 21-22 (perhaps 2008 at the end of the deadline when new Security Certificate legislation had to be brought in). P.C. asked the witness whether he had anything to do with the signing of the certificates. Mr. Vrbanic said he didn’t. P.C. also asked about the ‘time gap’ between the expiry of the old certificate legislation and the signing of the new ones – for the four remaining detainees (Mr. Vrbanic admitted that there was fear that the four detainees might bring a motion to be released since there was no valid certificate to hold them) and whether this time gap was the inspiration for the signing in haste (Mr. Day signed his copy in Vancouver) perhaps without due consideration being given to evidence. P.C. also raised the issue of Mr. Mahjoub being a ‘convention refugee’ when he came to Canada and part of his testimony to the Refugee Review board was a fear of torture by Egyptian authorities. P.C. asked if this testimony was taken into account by the government. He went on to point out that Mr. Mahjoub was sentenced in absentia in Egypt in 1999 to ‘x’ years in prison. P.C. asked if the fact that Egypt routinely uses torture was taken into consideration regarding information used to create the security certificate. Judge Blanchard and Mr. Tyndale pointed out that matters of torture were covered a year ago during the ‘Torture Motion’ hearings, but P.C. replied that there is relevance to torture information if the Security Certificate signing is at least partly based on testimony obtained by torture. For example, did CSIS advise the Ministers about testimony obtained by torture? P. C. pointed out that Amnesty International has said that the evidence used in Egypt against Mr. Mahjoub was obtained by torture. P.C. said he would leave details about this matter to later witnesses who should have more intimate information regarding the basis for the signing of the Security Certificates. After lunch break, M.C. had no questions for the witness and the witness was excused.

Scheduling was then done for next week’s hearings. Some upcoming scheduled witnesses are fairly high level bureacrats or retired bureaucrats who had some connection to the Security Certificates, Mr. Flanagan, Elizabeth Snow and later Ms. Johnston, Mr. Judd, former head of CSIS, Mr. Foley and present head of CSIS Mr. Fadden. An interesting exchange was about Mr. Foley who is in China. Mr. Tyndale said he may have to be flown here at the expense of Mr. Mahjoub – meaning Legal Aid! Judge Blanchard said that teleconferencing is quite feasible but was discouraged by Mr. Tyndale because of the extreme time difference.

The hearings resume Monday, June 13 at 9:30 am and continue on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday (not Thursday).

There is no hearing tomorrow – Friday, June 10.

Please come next week to Federal Court, 180 Queen St. W., 6^th floor, near Osgoode Station on University line.

Mahjoub Hearings - Week of June 6, 2011

Hi all:

I just returned home from Ottawa, Sunday evening and spoke to Mohammed on the phone at which time he informed me that the Federal Court hearings do not resume until Thursday, June 9 at 9:30 am (no hearings Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday), so I hope this reaches supporters in time for their week’s plans. Sorry I do not have anything to report about the week since Monday but may have some information later in the week since I will be with Mohammed tomorrow – Monday.

On Thursday June 9^th please come to Federal Court, 180 Queen St. West, 6^th floor, 9:30 am, near Osgoode station on the University subway line.