In 2003 Abousfian Abdelrazik was falsely accused of terrorist links by Canada’s spy agency CSIS while visiting his ill mother in his native country of Sudan. He was subsequently and repeatedly jailed and tortured.
His assets were frozen. His name placed on a no-fly list. He was efectively abandoned by successive Canadian governments and officials until a judge ordered the Canadian government to bring him home.
It’s a hellish story Abdelrazik a Sudanese-Canadian recently recounted while in Calgary as part of a cross-Canada speaking tour.
Adbelrazik informs Canadians about his unlawful detention in Sudanese prison prevention from returning home to Canada and the consequences of being added and not yet removed from the UN’s 1267 Watch List. That list prevents Abdelrazik a trained machinist from owning property or working to this day.
Abdelrazik who has since been cleared by CSIS and the RCMP is currently taking the federal government to court for its role in this fiasco — seeking $24 million from the government and an additional $3 million against Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon for “misfeasance in public office.”
Video shot and edited by Chelsea Pratchett.
