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., 6th floor, near Osgoode Station on University line.
No comments:
Post a Comment