Canadian prison being called Guantanamo North

CTV.ca News Staff
03/12/2006 11:34:45 PM

A small trailer with six cells surrounded by razor wire and fencing on the grounds of Millhaven Prison is being called Guantanamo North by human rights activists.

Mahmoud Jaballah, who has been detained for more than five years without being charged, is one of three men being held in the trailer compound in the Kingston penitentiary on security certificates based on secret intelligence.

Jaballah said all he wants is a fair trial. "If I go to a fair trial ... I will have freedom," he told CTV News.

Jaballah arrived in Canada in 1996. He was detained in August 2001 on a second security certificate after the courts rejected the first one as unreasonable.

Ottawa can use a security certificate to determine whether a foreign citizen poses a security threat. Under the certificates, the person can be held indefinitely without being charged, and without being told the reason for the detention.

Jaballah's son remembers the night in 1996 when a CSIS agent visited their Toronto home.

"They asked my father to become a spy for them and to work for the secret service," said Ahmad Jaballah, "and my father refused because it doesn't take a genius to realize that spying on your neighbour is wrong."

CSIS denies threatening Jaballah. The intelligence agency alleges he was part of a terror organization in Egypt and met Ahmed Khadr in the 1990s. Khadr, a Canadian and close associate of Osama bin Laden, was killed in a firefight in Afghanistan after Sept. 11, 2001.

CSIS agents say that he still poses a threat.

Devout Muslims put their faith ahead of everything, even family and friends, testified a CSIS agent, identified only as J.P., when Jaballah contested a detention order that would have sent him back to his homeland of Egypt.

Jaballah fought the deportation order because he fears he'll be tortured or killed if sent back.

Jaballah admits he met Khadr in Toronto.

"I told you I know him only because I greet him in the mosque like I greet a lot of people in the mosque," said Jaballah.

Two weeks ago, members of Parliament toured the facility where Jaballah and the other three men are kept.

"These men have been detained without conviction for 5 or 6 years," said NDP MP Bill Siksaynd from British Columbia. "The indefinite detention is unacceptable in Canada."

But the government isn't planning to make any changes.

"Our preoccupation has to be the safety and security of Canadians first and foremost," said Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day. "These people are allowed to go back to their country of origin and, if they want to stay, then they'll be detained."

That leaves Jaballah and his family in limbo.

A federal judge ruled last month he can't be deported to Egypt because of the risk of torture, so he remains in custody with fewer privileges than convicted inmates. He has no access to education, training or private visits with his family.
Jaballah's wife and six children live in Toronto.

"Life is miserable, depressing because I am very far from my kids," he said. "I miss my kids. I miss watching them as they grow."

With a report by CTV News' Rosemary Thompson