Posted on 02/26/2005 8:52:12 PM PST by Pikamax
Terrorist returns: Peter MacKay urges Ottawa to consider revoking citizenship
Stewart Bell National Post
February 26, 2005
CREDIT: CP Photo Peter MacKay, the Conservative Party's deputy leader and public safety critic, urged the government to consider revoking Kamel's Canadian citizenship.
TORONTO - One of Canada's most notorious terrorist leaders has returned home to Montreal after serving four years in a French prison for his role in an international jihadist network.
Fateh Kamel, a 44-year-old Algerian-Canadian who headed a Montreal-based extremist cell, arrived in Montreal on Jan. 29 aboard an Air France flight, sources told the National Post.
A charismatic shopkeeper who led a double life as the international terrorist operative "Moustapha," Kamel was dubbed the "Islamist Carlos" because of his remarkable exploits around the world.
"I am GIA," he once said in a conversation intercepted by Italian counter-terrorism investigators. GIA is the French acronym for the Algerian Armed Islamic Group. "Killing is easy for me."
The best-known member of the so-called Groupe Fateh Kamel was Ahmed Ressam, the failed refugee claimant from Montreal who tried to blow up Los Angeles International Airport at the dawn of the millennium.
Captured in Jordan in 1999, Kamel was tried in Paris in 2001 and convicted for his involvement with terrorist groups. Although sentenced to eight years' imprisonment, he was released early for good behaviour. He has a Canadian wife and son.
Peter MacKay, the Conservative Party's deputy leader and public safety critic, urged the government to consider revoking Kamel's Canadian citizenship. Canada has used such tactics against Nazi war criminals.
"By all means we should be examining revocation, and certainly there is cause for the Canadian government, for our officials, to examine whether he was truthful at the time of his entry into this country," Mr. MacKay said.
"I have a real problem with us just saying we'll let bygones be bygones. I don't think most Canadians have much comfort level knowing that this convicted terrorist is now back in our country."
Kamel's return comes as another suspected al-Qaeda operative from Montreal, Moroccan Adil Charkaoui, was freed by a Federal Court judge who ruled he was no longer a threat to Canadian security. He is still facing the prospect of deportation.
The cases are posing challenges for Canadian officials trying to strike a balance between the rights of one-time terrorists and the imperative to protect national security in the era of global terrorism.
"Someone who's an ideologue is usually very unlikely to give it up. They're going to believe that way for the rest of their lives," said John Thompson, executive director of the Mackenzie Institute security think tank.
"On the other hand, with the IRA and some other groups, terrorists who've come out of prison are likely to try and live quietly. They can't get back into the clandestine life. ... He's somebody whose going to be watched and he knows it."
Born in El Harrach, Algeria, Kamel moved to Canada in the 1980s and married a Quebec schoolteacher. He fought in the war in Afghanistan and later went to Bosnia, where the next international jihad was underway. He was injured there.
In Montreal, he was the boss of an Islamic extremist cell composed of Algerians and Moroccans. The group was a branch of the Algerian GIA, but also developed close links to bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
"Kamel was a key member of the international Islamist terrorist network of the mujahedeen, or holy warriors ... determined to strike the Western world order that they considered corrupt and immoral," according to a Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) document.
"As well, he played a central role in the wave of terrorist attacks that erupted in France towards the middle of the 1990s, notably the plot to commit bomb attacks in Paris metro stations and a series of attacks in the city of Roubaix, in northern France."
He travelled extensively throughout Europe and worked closely with his right-hand man, Karim Said Atmani, a Moroccan who trained in Afghanistan and fought in Bosnia before coming to Canada hidden in a Liberian cargo ship. An expert documents forger, Atmani ran a ring that committed low-level crimes such as cellular phone thefts to raise money for their militant activities. He was arrested in Niagara Falls in 1998 and sent to prison in France.
Kamel denied all at his trial, despite photographic and wiretap evidence, telling the judge, "What have I done? ... I was not arrested with weapons. Not once! Not once did I have false papers, not once had a weapon."
France convicted him of "participating in a criminal association for the purposes of preparing acts of terrorism" and supplying fraudulent passports to militants.
After Kamel's arrest, Ressam emerged as the group's new leader. He and his associates discussed bombing a Jewish neighbourhood in Montreal and threatened to attack the Montreal metro system with biological and chemical weapons.
Another of Ressam's associates, Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who gave the call to prayer at a Montreal mosque, is alleged by U.S. investigators to have recruited several of the 9/11 hijackers in Germany.
Although the Kamel group was broken up through a series of arrests and deportations, CSIS director Jim Judd testified this week that similar extremists continue to operate in Canada.
"There are several graduates of terrorist training camps, many of whom are battle-hardened veterans of campaigns in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya and elsewhere, who reside here, and still others who continue to seek access to our country," he told MPs.
"Often, these individuals remain in contact with one another in Canada, and show signs of ongoing clandestine-type activities employing sophisticated counter-surveillance techniques, secret communications, and secretive meeting arrangements."
Someone in Canada has some sense???
(Denny Crane: "There are two places to find the truth. First God and then Fox News.")
!!!! May we PLEASE do something about these borders?
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