Wife feels 'like a widow' [Husband accused of links to terrorist group]

OTTAWA -- A lovestruck Sophie Harkat had no idea what the future had in store for her when she met her husband at the gas station where he worked more than three years ago.

Four days after Mohamed Harkat was arrested outside their apartment building, the 28-year-old woman is stunned by the allegations he has links to terrorism.

"I've never had any reasons to suspect him of any wrongdoing," she said yesterday, speaking publicly for the first time since her husband's arrest earlier this week. "I'm shocked and appalled by this news. I sincerely love my husband and I trust him 100%."

Harkat first came to Canada in the mid-1990s and was given refugee status in February 1997. He made an application for permanent residency which seemed to go nowhere. It's believed Harkat's citizenship process was stalled because of a CSIS investigation into his alleged ties to terrorism.

"I knew myself we were (being followed)," she said. "There were strange cars around my apartment. I could hear a clicking sound on my phone line. You could just feel it."

A government source told The Ottawa Sun that a classified intelligence report on Harkat alleges he is connected to the Algerian Islamic Army Group (GIA), the first terrorist organization to be banned in Canada after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

The GIA is a radical anti-western Sunni Muslim group based in Algeria with cells outside that country and ties to al-Qaida.

The classified intelligence report was what spurred Solicitor General Wayne Easter and Citizenship and Immigration Minister Denis Coderre to sign a "security certificate" -- the first step in the deportation process -- last week.

"I'm almost ashamed to be Canadian. My husband works almost 20 hours a day for us to be able to survive."

Sophie Harkat never has heard her husband talk about the GIA or express any anti-American thoughts.

"My husband is just as concerned as I am about everything that has been happening," she said of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. "He's a very sensitive person. He reads the media. He watches the news. He's just as interested as everyone else in the world what is happening."

"I'm somewhat like a widow," she said. "One day I have a husband and the next day I don't."

Why don't we start with these?

"I've never had any reasons to suspect him of any wrongdoing,"...I'm shocked and appalled by this news. I sincerely love my husband and I trust him 100%."

And yet--

"I knew myself we were (being followed)," she said. "There were strange cars around my apartment. I could hear a clicking sound on my phone line. You could just feel it."

Muslims seem to have a gift for selecting gullible Western wives, don't they? It never occurred to Sophie to wonder WHY a lowly gas-pumper would have his phone tapped and his movements tracked? This one couldn't buy a clue with a million dollars...

"I'm almost ashamed to be Canadian. My husband works almost 20 hours a day for us to be able to survive."

Well, she may be gullible, but she has managed to get the, um, cultural hyperbole down pat. 20 hours a day. Uh huh...

Sophie Harkat never has heard her husband talk about the GIA or express any anti-American thoughts.

Well, of course you didn't, dearie, your husband is "working 20 hours a day"...

"I'm somewhat like a widow," she said. "One day I have a husband and the next day I don't."

If your husband is really working 20 hours a day, you've been somewhat like a widow for a long time, haven't you? Four hours to sleep, eat, and shower doesn't leave a whole lot of time for wifey...

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