Today’s hearing was characterized by many objections from the Ministers’ Counsel (MC) which led to delays for ‘in camera’ hearings. There were five Mahjoub supporters there for most of the day. Because so much time is being used up by objections and delays, court was extended until 6 pm and will resume tomorrow morning at 9:30 am but should be over by noon.
The same witness is being cross-examined; a CSIS agent known as witness #4 who was the author of the latest CSIS ‘threat assessment’ of Mohamed Mahjoub. He has decided in his report that the present restrictive and invasive conditions placed on Mr. Mahjoub, should continue unchanged despite the passage of time and no record of violations by Mr. Mahjoub.
Paul Slansky, Public Counsel (PC) continued as the lawyer leading the charge for Mr. Mahjoub. He was continually frustrated by Ministers’ Counsel (MC) objections on the basis of national security even to a document that was already public. It has been an uphill battle for Mr. Slansky to try to get the witness to actually answer his questions directly without just talking around the issue and without answering. Then MC objects and says that PC has had his answer just because the witness has said something.
Mr. Slansky is trying his best to show that witness #4 has prepared his threat assessment using information, some 15 years old from a Security Intelligence Report (SIR) and from ‘unsourced’ documents treated as if they were the ‘unvarnished’ truth. Mr. Slansky got the witness to say that he respects the work of his CSIS colleagues to the point that he needn’t do his own checking or research. There also seems to be much reliance on old information about Egyptian organizations like the ‘Vanguards of Conquest’, ‘Al Jihad’ and ‘Al Quaeda’ regarding who belonged and when and when some of these organizations ceased to exist and whether Mr. Mahjoub had any connection to them. Yet the ‘Threat Report’ relies unwaveringly on this old and incomplete information and implies that even though old networks may have been disrupted long ago, that Mr. Mahjoub, if given his freedom would somehow restart these even though he has shown no signs of attempting to do so. The impression left by testimony of witness #4 is that Mr. Mahjoub can never be freed because his ‘threat status’ can never be seen to be diminishing with time. Therefore Mr. Mahjoub will always be seen as a threat in an absolute sense by CSIS and must always remain under restrictive and invasive conditions.
Mr. Slansky was able to expose two organization culture characteristics that would colour witness #4's assessment of Mr. Mahjoub. One was that witness #4 says he believes that any Muslim man who went to Afghanistan to fight the Soviet invasion in the ‘80’s in a ‘legitimate defensive role’ was a Mujahideen who must return from that experience as a pro-jihadist, anti-infidel, anti-western terrorist. At the same time, American government institutions and individuals who supported the Mujahideen were not affected in this way. Mr. Slansky used an analogy of some Canadians going to Israel to defend it against some enemies. Witness #4 admitted that these returning veterans would not be looked upon as terrorists upon their return unless they acted in a violent way. Mr. Slansky, without casting aspertions upon the witness, said the only conclusion to be drawn is that there is a racial attitude at work – meaning that the witness believes that all returning Mujahideen are terrorists, but not returning veterans of other wars. This affects his threat assessment of Mr. Mahjoub because if Mr. Mahjoub went to Afghanistan as he is accused of doing in the ‘90’s then he must be a terrorist.
The other organizational culture of CSIS seems to be implicit respect and trust in whatever other agents seem to have found out and believe, written in the SIR and often not independently checked. Mr. Slansky even suggested to the witness that with this kind of respect and trust in colleagues work, one person’s research and report may be repeated over and over by other agents.
Another topic had to do with confusion about a possible Egyptian colleague of Mr. Mahjoub who happens to be in an Egyptian prison right now and whose name is Sagr. Mr. Mahjoub has been described as having an alias that was Shakar. When witness #4 was asked by Mr. Slansky whether there was any possibilty that CSIS intelligence had mixed Sagr up with Mr. Mahjoub, the witness answered yes there was a possibility but “I trust my colleagues” not to have done this.
Court tomorrow will begin at 9:30 am and will likley be over by noon. Located at Federal Courthouse, 180 Queen St. W., 6th floor (near Osgoode subway station)
Court then resumes next week, Tuesday, December 13, 9:30 am, same location, with a witness from Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA)
1 comment:
Thank you very much for keeping us up to date on these court proceedings.
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