Languishing In Freedom

Mohamed Harkat, identified by Canada's security and intelligence agency as an al-Qaeda sleeper agent, a terrorist-in-waiting for the opportunity to inflict damage where he may in Canada, insists he is innocent of the charges brought against him. These are extraordinary times, calling for unusual measures to ensure the public safety when it is well known and well recorded that terror groups have infiltrated other countries' security to inflict terror on a hapless population.

Canadians expect our security agencies to do their utmost to ensure that their country remains free from terror attacks. We have, in fact, been directly threatened by Osama bin Laden and his henchmen, given prior notice that this country is on their list of those whom Islamist jihadists have marked for attention we could handily do without. Security and police agents have apprehended home-grown terror cells.

The best possible scenario would be to expel this terror suspect no longer held in secure custody through incarceration, to his home country of Algeria, where he was once a member of a terror group there, associated with other such groups in Egypt and elsewhere. Mr. Harkat insists his life would be forfeit were he to be returned to Algeria. He wants to remain in Canada.

His wife has no wish to remove herself from her country of birth to accompany her husband to Algeria, and would prefer they remain in Canada. But she is fed up with what she claims is the over-zealousness of the Canada Border Services Agency whose job it is to ensure that her husband does not escape custody, nor engage in activities that would prove to be inimical to Canada's interests.

"It has been two years of non-stop CBSA in my face. I don't know who I need to explode to", she informed Judge Simon Noel in a hearing of her husband's status. For her part, Ms. Harkat wants the judge to ease their plight, describing the "humiliations" she suffers as a result of the bail conditions inflicted upon her husband, the non-terrorist.

The man is considered a threat to Canada's security, and his wife is fed up because in accordance with his bail conditions, an approved surety must be with her husband at all times. As a result, he was 'forced' to accompany her for a visit to her gynaecologist, and sit in the waiting room while she was examined. They've had to rush out of restaurants, meals not fully consumed, to make it home in time.

Under his bail conditions, he wears a GPS monitor, is allowed three four-hour excursions, daily walks and a trip to the mosque, weekly. If they are out engaged in something, they must be constantly aware of the time not exceeding four hours. She has had to give up her job to be with her husband constantly, due to bail conditions, and they live on welfare.

Truly a sad, most unfortunate situation. A miserable lifestyle. Two Border agents actually sat behind them during a National Arts Centre performance. And on three separate occasions followed them to a movie theatre, sitting close beside them. Is this a case of trivializing the nation's security interest in opposition to this couple's inalienable right to live in freedom?

"I am devastated. I am a prisoner in my own home. I am a jailer and I feel my husband is paying a huge price", Ms. Harkat complained to the presiding judge. A solution is simple enough. In exchange for the charges brought against Mohamed Harkat, high-security incarceration seems sensible. One recalls Ms. Harkat pleading with the authorities to let her husband come home on any kind of extreme bail conditions.

No sacrifices would be too much for her to bear if only her husband would be released to her custody. The lady protests and protests and protests. This entire tedious business goes beyond absurdity. Two options remain: forcible deportation to Algeria, or a resumption of his prison stay until his trial takes place.