Adil Charkaoui

Adil Charkaoui is represented in a 2004 protest outside the Toronto office of CSIS.

From 2001 to 2003, Charkaoui operated a Montreal pizzeria, where the CSIS first approached him in the wake of 9/11. He refused to account for his whereabouts or reason for travel to Pakistan. Moroccan authorities stated that Charkaoui provided funds and resources to an Islamic insurgent group.[11]

Charkaoui was arrested under a security certificate in May 2003, which was co-signed by Solicitor General Wayne Easter, and Immigration Minister Denis Coderre.[14] He was detained without charge or trial in Rivière des prairies Detention Centre. The Coalition Justice for Adil Charkaoui was formed in defense of his rights, with Coalition launching a campaign for his release.

He was released from prison on C$50,000 bail on 18 February 2005. His bail conditions included a curfew, electronic monitoring, designated chaperones for leaving his home, restriction to the island of Montreal, 24-hour police access to his home without warrant, and a prohibition on access to the internet, on the use of cell phones and on the use of any telephone except the one in his home.

Not long after his release, Charkaoui unsuccessfully tried to help Bloc Quebecois candidate Apraham Niziblian defeat Coderre in the 2006 Canadian federal election, saying:[15]

It's not a question of being anti-Coderre. We are citizens before anything, we have the right to have political ideas and to have choice. Gone is the time when the Liberals could take the ethnic vote for granted.

Restrictions on his conditional release were gradually lifted to be cancelled in September 2009.[9] A helpful timeline of his arrest and events subsequent was produced by The Globe and Mail,[16] on his final release order by Federal Court Judge Danièle Tremblay-Lamer: "There will be an order all conditions be revoked immediately."[11]

Charkaoui opened on 22 February 2010 a $24.5 million lawsuit against the Canadian government in Quebec Superior Court in which he demanded compensation for wrongful arrest and detention. He sent a letter asking for an apology, Canadian citizenship and compensation for lost income and legal fees after a federal judge quashed a security certificate against him. Past federal ministers Denis Coderre and Wayne Easter, Diane Finley and Stockwell Day were named in the suit.[17][18]

In August 2013, Charkaoui defended the right of two foreign Islamic hate-preachers to spread their message in Montreal, even if they held sexist and misogynist views of women in society. Citing security concerns, the event was cancelled by the convention centre where it was supposed to be held. Charkaoui maintained that it was Islamophobia to ban their visit to Canada.[5]

For a time prior to 2015, Charkaoui rented classroom space every Sunday from Collège de Maisonneuve, a Montreal Cegep near the Olympic Stadium, for Muslim education and Arabic language studies,[6] which he calls l'École des compagnons.[7] Charkaoui also rented classroom space at the nearby Collège de Rosemont, also a Cegep.[7] It was reported in February 2015 that six of his young students had absconded to Syria, allegedly with intent to join an Islamic terrorist group, either ISIS or the Nusra Front.[6] Of these, four students were following his guidance at the de Maisonneuve location, and at least one teenager, Mohammed Rifaat, he knew through the Rosemont location.[7]

Before the week was out, Charkaoui threatened to sue both Colleges because they had terminated the arrangements under which he leased the classroom spaces.[7][10] At a press conference, he deemed the termination unacceptable and dishonest.[10]

An interview of Charkaoui by ICI RDI's Anne-Marie Dussault sparked quite a bit of controversy the following week.[19] Dressed in a djellaba, Charkaoui presented himself as a victim and rejected calls for him to condemn violent jihadism and the Islamist project.[20] Instead he accused occidental politicians of promoting violence against Muslims in a degenerate, Islamophobic culture.[20] Charkaoui maintained that ISIS was a creature of the US government, and on his website he hyperlinks to other websites that offer praise of Osama bin Laden.[20] He rejects any interference of the wider community in which he lives on his religious rights; he finds this argument to be nefarious.[20] One commentator was shocked because of what his position meant in the context of his pedagogical pursuits.[20]

Fabrice de Pierrebourg of the Journal de Montreal testified in Federal Court on 22 August 2007 that, in correspondence, Ahmed Ressam had withdrawn his allegations against Adil Charkaoui;[23] the former had written to the latter, who is also known as the Millennium Bomber for his failed plot to bomb LAX airport,[11] in the course of writing a book about terrorism in Montreal.

Ressam was convicted in the United States and held under an unusual arrangement whereby he was offered a reduced sentence in exchange for information. Under this arrangement, over a period of some years, he fingered 130 people as "members" of the "extremist Islamist network linked to Bin Laden". Two cases in the United States were dismissed after Ressam's evidence proved worthless. Earlier in Charkaoui's case, Charkaoui's lawyer introduced an arrest warrant for Ahmed Ressam for an incident that occurred in Montreal at a time when Ressam claimed, under oath in another case, to have been in a training camp in Afghanistan. Ressam is known to have suffered a mental breakdown while in prison.

After learning that Mr. Ressam was supposed to have named him, Charkaoui repeatedly asked to be able to cross-examine him in court, but the motion was not granted.

In the original charges against Charkaoui, two government ministers mistakenly referred to martial arts having been used by a hijacker aboard "American Airlines Flight 93", a mistaken reference likely meant to refer to United Airlines 93 or American Airlines Flight 11.[2]