An Egyptian man is suing the federal government for $34 million for supposedly violating his rights, plus an additional $3.4 million in punitive damages, according to a report in the National Post.
For 17 years, the feds have been trying to deport the man, named Mahmoud Jaballah, over his alleged terror ties.
Despite the best efforts of our security and intelligence community, our leftist courts repeatedly dismissed evidence tying Jaballah to various terrorists and terror attacks on the basis of how the information was collected.
In Canada, it always seems like the rights and freedoms of terrorists comes first.
The lawsuit and the failed court cases are just the tip of the iceberg, however, when it comes to the absurdity of this case.
Back in 1996, Jaballah and his family used fake passports from Saudi Arabia to come to Canada. They lied and took advantage of our generosity.
When the family arrived, they admitted that they were Egyptian asylum seekers and filed for refugee status. Their claim was based on the fact that they said they would be persecuted by the Egyptian government if they were to be deported.
Unlike many bona fide refugees fleeing Egypt at the time, the Jaballah family were not Coptic Christians or members of the persecuted Jewish community.
They weren’t part of an ethnic minority nor were they religious dissidents who had contradicted barbaric apostasy or blasphemy laws.
No no. The reason Jaballah said he could not return to Egypt was because the Egyptian government believed he was part of al Qaeda.
You know, the notorious terrorist organization led by Osama bin Laden that just five years later crashed planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, killing nearly 3,000 innocent civilians and dozens of Canadians. That al Qaeda.
He was an alleged refugee because he was an alleged terrorist.
Rather than sending Jaballah back on the first plane to Cairo, remarkably, Canada let him stay.
This despite the fact that his own country accused him of being linked to terrorists engaged in a covert war against the West.
Thankfully, not everyone in the federal government was as naive as those in the immigration department who let him stay. Canada’s intelligence agency, CSIS, immediately started investigating Jaballah.
By tapping his phone and surveilling his whereabouts, CSIS was able to gather enough evidence to claim he was a national security threat to Canada. He was arrested in 1999 through a national security certificate — a tool used to deport non-citizens who are deemed to be a threat to national security.
The federal courts, however, dismissed the certificate and Jaballah was let go. He was arrested again in 2001, and this time held for several years following 9/11. In 2007, however, the use of national security certificates was found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, and Jaballah was once again set free.
In 2008, he was arrested again, this time over the allegation he was tied to the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Africa that killed 200 people. He was held but once again set free due to technicalities in how the evidence was gathered.
For over 20 years, Jaballah has managed to stay in Canada despite the continued and best efforts of the government of Canada.
Now, he’s suing us for $37 million.
This case demonstrates everything wrong with our legal and our immigration system.
Candice Malcolm is the Founder of the True North
