Abousfian Abdelrazik or Abu Sufian Abd Al-Razziq (Arabic: أبو سفيان عبدالرازق) is a Sudanese-born Canadian dual citizen.
Abdelrazik's experience has been said to be similar to other Canadians such as Maher Arar, Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati, and Muayyed Nureddin.
Abdelrazik has claimed that he was tortured while in detention in Sudan, and the Canadian government has admitted in court submissions that two CSIS agents interrogated him while he was in Sudanese custody.
[8] Abousfian felt it necessary to state why he didn't list the names of his supporters in a letter to the editor of The Globe and Mail,"On the urging of my lawyers...I had earned the money by reciting alms.
[19] The Globe and Mail reported that it had acquired documents contradicting previous Canadian government statements that it had not requested Abdelrazik's detention.
In June 2009, the Federal Court agreed, ruling that, based on the internal government documents it had reviewed, it was probable that Abdelrazik had been detained at the request of CSIS.
[20] According to Canadian government submissions in a Federal Court case, Abdelrazik was interrogated by two CSIS agents while in Sudanese detention, under threat of torture and without charge.
He also repudiated every allegation that the US government had made against him, including accusations that he knew Osama bin Laden, had fought in Chechnya and trained in Afghanistan, and was a key al-Qaeda operative.
[22][23][24][25] On October 29, 2009, Richard Fadden, the head of CSIS, stated that civil rights advocates and media were presenting a distorted picture of suspected terrorists, in which Abdelrazik and others were "too often portrayed as romantic revolutionaries".
Fadden went on to state, "So why then, I ask, are those accused of terrorist offences often portrayed in media as quasi-folk heroes despite the harsh statements of numerous judges.
Why are they always photographed with their children, giving tender-hearted profiles and more or less taken at their word when they accuse CSIS or other government agencies of abusing them?...A more balanced presentation is what I'm hoping for.
According to The Globe and Mail, the U.S. State Department believed that "Mr. Abdelrazik was "closely associated with Abu Zubaydah, Osama bin Laden's lieutenant responsible for recruiting and for al-Qaeda's network of training camps in Afghanistan."
[28][16] In April 2011, the Guantanamo Bay files leak revealed that a November 2008 U.S. Department of Defense document claimed that Abdelrazik had admitted receiving $10,000 from alleged al-Qaeda financier Hassan Zemiri, who was captured in late 2001 in Tora Bora, Afghanistan.
Accordingly, on August 26, 2008, Abdelrazik booked a flight to Canada on Etihad Airways, which was willing to fly him despite the fact that his presence on the US no-fly list meant that any airline which transported him would no longer be able to enter US airspace.
The donors included former solicitor-general Warren Allmand, political science professor at the University of Toronto Joseph Carens, and Canadian peace activist and former Iraq hostage James Loney.
[33][34] On April 3, 2009, a letter was received by Abousfian Abdelrazik's lawyer in Ottawa, Canada, stating that the Minister of Foreign Affairs had refused to grant an emergency passport, pursuant to regulations allowing such action if judged necessary for national security.
[37] Justice Zinn stated that Mr. Abdelrazik, "is as much a victim of international terrorism as the innocent persons whose lives have been taken by recent barbaric acts of terrorists".
The Globe and Mail stated, "In a toughly worded 107-page ruling, Justice Zinn pilloried the government's claims of trying to help Mr. Abdelrazik, concluded that Canadian anti-terrorism agents were implicated in his imprisonment in Sudan, denounced the UN terrorist blacklist as an affront to justice and basic human rights and slammed Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon for high-handedly ignoring due process of law".
[38] In response to public demands by opposition parties that Ottawa should stop fighting the case, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said government lawyers would need time to review the 107-page decision before deciding on a course of action.
The Hamilton Spectator stated that according to Justice Minister Robert Nicholson, "the Harper government spent more than C$800,000 in legal fees fighting a losing battle to keep Canadian citizen Abousfian Abdelrazik from coming home".
The government characterized the lawsuit as mostly frivolous and vexatious, and claimed that "no such tort has been recognized in Canadian law" for failing to prevent torture at the hands of others.
His lawyer, Paul Champ, indicated that he would submit an official notice to the federal government of the decision and expected that all sanctions against Abdelrazik would be lifted immediately.