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.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not