Imagine waking up one fine morning to discover that you are being arrested at the request of a foreign government that accuses you of a heinous crime about which you know nothing. The normally speedy extradition process is further hastened by the apparent willingness of your own government to accept intelligence as “evidence” for extradition. Upon arriving in the foreign country, you find that the same secret intelligence will be used at trial and your opportunities to challenge the foreign state’s charges are severely restricted. You will be unable to call or cross-examine witnesses, or introduce other exonerating evidence.
This Kafkaesque scenario is playing out right now in Ontario Superior Court, where Dr. Hassan Diab, a sociology instructor in Ottawa, is facing extradition to France on charges of involvement in a terrorist bombing that occurred in Paris 30 years ago. The Crown attorney in charge of the extradition case appears to see eye to eye with the French, who make no distinction between secret intelligence and courtroom evidence. Dr. Diab has been advised by experts on the French legal system that attempting to cross-examine witnesses or call evidence to challenge the dossier will be looked upon by the tribunal of judges in Paris as a challenge to the integrity of the judiciary itself.
Under these circumstances a Canadian citizen like Dr. Diab may even prefer to be charged under Canada’s highly controversial security certificate system, which allows the federal government to arrest, detain and deport non-citizens on national security grounds. The United Nations and international human rights groups have repeatedly criticized Canada’s security certificates for violating civil liberties and due process. Secret material in security certificate cases is off limits to the defendant and his lawyer, but the judge, prosecutor and special advocate have access to classified documents. The special advocate can also cross-examine CSIS agents, informants and other witnesses. In Dr. Diab’s case, Canadian and French judges and prosecutors do not know the sources of the intelligence information, and there will be no opportunity to probe this material in either jurisdiction.
Recently, the Diab case took an unexpected turn when the extradition hearing was postponed indefinitely at the Crown’s request. The adjournment was prompted by defense evidence challenging handwriting analysis and the use of secret intelligence. France has until March 29 to come up with any “new evidence” in the 30-year-old case. The earliest possible date for the extradition hearing looks to be June. In the meantime, Dr. Diab remains under virtual house arrest, jobless, and required to abide by strict bail conditions.
The nature of the allegations against Dr. Diab suggests that intelligence saturating the case comes from Middle Eastern countries with poor human rights records. Canadians should ask themselves if they are prepared to accept the extradition of a Canadian citizen based on information that may be the product of torture. This is particularly disturbing in light of the cases of Maher Arar, Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad Abou-Elmaati, Muayyed Nureddin, and Abousfian Abdelrazik, as well as the recent allegations that Canadian troops in Afghanistan handed detainees over to local authorities with the knowledge that they would likely be tortured.
Human Rights Watch and international lawyers’ organizations have condemned France’s counter-terrorism judiciary for using intelligence as courtroom evidence, a practice that is inconceivable in a Canadian criminal court. Canadian legal principles should not become compromised by France’s apparent indifference to legal and human rights quandaries arising from treating intelligence as evidence in criminal cases.
France’s botched handwriting analysis and fanciful interpretation of other evidence in the case carries a distinct odor of incompetence—or worse. Dr. Diab’s lawyer has shown that French investigators tailored the intelligence in contradictory ways to make it fit the evidence. None of this should instill confidence in the intelligence information.
The Diab case will establish a dangerous legal precedent if a Canadian court allows unsourced intelligence of unknown, untestable reliability to be used to extradite a Canadian citizen. Canadians should be deeply troubled by the serious threat the Diab case poses to their rights and freedoms.
Don Pratt received a Ph.D. in sociology from Syracuse University in 1997. He lives and works in San Mateo, California, and is a member of the Hassan Diab Support Committee.
I doubt that the government would even be entertaining the thought of extradition if Dr Diab’s name had been Dr Smith. The fact of the matter is that the conservative government has repeatedly refused to act on the behalf of muslim citizens such as the Somali born Canadian woman Suaad Hagi Mohamud or Abousfian Abdelrazik who was only returned home after some legal trickery by the Liberals and NDP.
I have yet to here of a similiar case where a wasp has had Canada turn it’s back and go out of their way to avoid their responsibilities to their citizens
As a Carleton graduate and an academic myself, I am consternated to hear that
Carleton would fire a lecturer improbably (it appears) accused of a thirty-year-old crime. Has he no colleagues to speak up for him? the place should show more guts.
With great surprise I learned about the case of Dr. Hassan Diab who is threatened to be extradited to France on accusation of involvement in the Paris synagogue bombing 30 years ago. What is really disturbing is that all the “evidence” is based upon undisclosed Intelligence information and handwriting analysis of a few written words, which is notoriously unreliable. Dr. Hassan Diab is not only accused of this crime but already convicted! Since he lost his job teaching at the university and moreover is committed to house arrest for the surveillance of which he has to pay himself!
Thinking this over I come to the conclusion that somewhere overzealous French officials want to score in this stone-cold case which they could never solve and have now come up with fabricated(?) evidence !!
It is very disappointing that Canadian law allows all of this to happen to a Canadian citizen, it seems that nobody within the judicial system wants to burn his fingers with this case, hence the endless delays, at the expense of Dr. Diab. I wish Dr. Diab strength and success in his case and for a quick recurrence to common sense within the judiciary.
Canadians face severe erosions of civil liberty. Dr Diab’s case is only one among many. I lived in Montreal when 9/11 occurred, and the response of many institutions was astonishingly stupid. My grand-daughter’s daycare centre, for example, closed. I had a severe chat with the daycare director and informed her about basic security protocols, in which I am highly experienced, and it was futile. I even had the security director of the university speak to her. That also got me nowhere. He agreed with me, but that’s faint comfort.
I am a staunch defender of Hassan, and have taken a great deal of flack in the Jewish community for it. I have had trusted Jewish leaders come up to me and tell me that if Hassan is innocent he has nothing to fear from turning himself into the French authorities. These would be the same French authorities, I countered, who sent Alfred Dreyfus to Devil’s Island? The same French authorities who have banned any recognisable symbol of religion in the public sphere? The same French authorities who are asking handwriting analysts to lie — and who are being caught by internationally renowned experts at it, one of whom is a trusted handwriting analyst used by the RCMP?
We live in a McCarthy-esque era, one I hope we overcome quickly.