|
Crown calls for video monitoring of terrorism suspect
Canadian officials are taking the unprecedented step of asking a judge to install closed-circuit video cameras inside a terrorism suspect's family home, arguing national security necessitates the scrutiny. Crown lawyer Donald MacIntosh said in an interview yesterday he hopes the Federal Court will approve the heightened surveillance, though he knows of no jurisdiction that has tried it. Having raised the proposal orally last week, he said he intends to submit a formal argument before a hearing next month.Lawyers acting for Mahmoud Jaballah, an Egyptian asylum-seeker who already lives under extremely strict house arrest, are resisting added surveillance and fighting for increased liberties. In fact, the Federal Court is currently weighing his proposal that he be let out of his Toronto home to teach school lessons to Muslim children. Canadian officials accuse Mr. Jaballah of playing a "communications relay" role in a major terrorist massacre - al-Qaeda's 1998 African embassy bombings. His potential access to fax machines, computers and telephones inside his family home, where he lives with his wife and five children, deeply worries the government. Mr. Jaballah, who was never charged with a criminal offence, spent nearly all of 1999 to 2007 in jail. Attempts to deport him to Egypt, a country known to torture fundamentalists, failed on humanitarian grounds. Like four other alleged al-Qaeda-affiliated foreigners held under controversial "security certificate" powers, he has recently agreed to live under extraordinary surveillance, in return for being let out of jail. Past measures have included the suspects submitting to being followed by federal agents during their few weekly excursions, having their calls monitored, staying away from computers and having video cameras installed - but outside the home. Never before has any Canadian prisoner on bail been known to have had to countenance cameras inside the household. Mr. Jaballah's main sureties, who are to ensure he lives up to his conditions, are his 22-year-old son, who is a student, and his wife, the acting principal of a Toronto Islamic school. Mr. Jaballah, who co-founded the school, hopes to resume teaching there. His wife said in an interview that Mr. Jaballah would teach math and sciences; his son said his father would teach Arabic. Crown lawyers are fighting the proposal to let Mr. Jaballah teach. "The school, parents, and children would need to be informed that the applicant is a national security risk," writes a government official in court documents. When Madam Justice Carolyn Layden-Stevenson ordered Mr. Jaballah freed last spring, she stated she did so with great reservations concerning Ms. Al-Mashtouli who "previously lied to the court" about her husband's history. The judge expressed higher hopes that the 22-year-old Ahmad Jaballah could watch his dad. Yesterday, he said the government's plan was unnecessary. "There is no reason to install cameras or video-conferencing equipment, it's just ridiculous," he said. "...My mom she wears a veil; being at home, if there's a camera, it restricts her movement." Officials have expressed concern the family has, on certain occasions, failed to lock up a laptop or fax machine that Mr. Jaballah could use. Judge Layden-Stevenson has ruled that there "are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr. Jaballah was a senior member of [Egyptian al-Jihad] who acted as a communicator among terrorist cells." She said late-1990s records have never been adequately explained: "Although provided with the opportunity to address the 72 calls to Yemen, the 47 calls to Azerbaijan, the 75 calls to London, England [to an alleged al-Qaeda front] ... and the 20 calls to the United Kingdom, Yemen, Azerbaijan, and Pakistan within a two-day time frame, Mr. Jaballah either failed to do so or was evasive." Posted by: ryuge 2007-10-30 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=204492 |