More than 100 supporters of a destitute Sudanese-born Canadian terror suspect chipped in to pay his airfare home from a seven-year exile in Sudan, newspaper reports said on Friday.
But the Canadian government, which has imposed increasingly difficult conditions on his repatriation, must still provide Abousfian Abdelrazik with an emergency passport to fly.
Officials would not say on Friday if they will issue him new travel documents.
TRAPPED
Abdelrazik has been trapped in Sudan since he traveled there to visit his ailing mother in 2002, after his name appeared on a United Nations no-fly list over his alleged ties to al-Qaeda.
During his stay, he claims he was detained for two years and tortured by Sudanese officials, but faced no charges.
ALONE
He is holed up at the Canadian embassy in Khartoum having said he fears for his safety if he leaves.
But nobody there will talk to him, he lamented in an interview with the daily Globe and Mail.
“I’m alone,” he said. “I just sit there.”
“They treat me like a dog,” he said.
Abdelrazik once lived in Montreal, and has an ex-wife and three children in Canada.
Both Sudan and Canada have publicly cleared him of terror ties. But he remains on the UN no-fly list at the behest of the US, his Canadian lawyer said.
Foreign Affairs Department spokesman Daniel Barbarie explained that Canada, as a UN member, is obliged to uphold its no fly order.
The university students, teachers, Christian missionaries once held hostage in Iraq, a former attorney general and others who pitched in to buy him a US$997 ticket to fly on April 3 from Khartoum to Toronto, via Abu Dhabi, now face possible charges by helping him.
LAW
Canada’s anti-terrorism law forbids anyone from providing funds to persons on the UN terror watch list.
The penalty, if convicted, is up to 10 years in prison.
But Barbarie said it would be up to police to decide to lay charges.
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