Posted on 08/27/2003 3:21:56 PM PDT by Clive
TORONTO (CP) - The detention review of 19 foreign students and refugee claimants suspected of al-Qaida ties began Wednesday with a ruling that one of the men would continue to be held because he may pose a national security threat.
An immigration review board hearing was told Muhammad Asif Aziz entered Canada nearly four years ago at an unknown U.S. border point by hiding in a truck that drove to Montreal. At the time, the board heard, he gave his name as Asif Yasin Mohammad and a birth date different to what is now on record with Immigration officials.
Aziz also said he was enrolled in the Ottawa Business College, even though the college ceased to operate in June 2001, said Edith DeCaire, hearings officer for Immigration Canada.
The board ruled that Aziz should remain in detention because of questions surrounding his identity.
Review officer Cathie Simmie said Immigration Canada, RCMP and federal security agents would need some time to sift through 25 boxes of evidence linked to the 19 men.
"The investigation into material seized in connection with the raid is continuing," Simmie said as she ordered Aziz back to a holding facility in Milton, Ont.
"There are considerable materials that need to be gone through . . . On the surface of it, information provided in the background report by (Immigration) provide the basis for a reasonable suspicion" that Aziz may be a security threat, she said.
Aziz appeared by videolink from the Maplehurst Correctional Complex where he's being held with 18 other men suspected of being part of an al-Qaida sleeper cell.
Reporters packed a tiny room set up at a downtown Immigration office to witness the 30-minute appearance, the first of seven expected to be heard Wednesday.
Investigators with the RCMP were probing allegations the men may have experimented with explosives and wanted to "find out the measurements and schematics" of prominent buildings in Canada and the United States, including the CN Tower.
Transcripts of 16 Immigration Canada review board hearing decisions outlining the reasons why the men were detained after their Aug. 14 arrests were made public Tuesday.
The men - 18 from Punjab province in Pakistan and one from southern India - had their first detention review before the Immigration and Refugee Board last week, when it was decided they would remain in custody.
The review, expected to continue Thursday, will determine whether they will continue to be held, and on what terms.
The arrests were carried out in the Toronto area in a bust known as Project Thread, according to a four-page summary of the case by the federal government.
There have been no criminal charges laid and federal officials said there's no indication any of the arrested were about to commit a terrorist act when apprehended.
Under new immigration laws, unproven allegations were enough to convince judges to keep the men detained even as they proclaimed innocence.
The case has outraged many in the city's Muslim community, who have denounced it as racial profiling.
Last week, top Ontario government and public safety officials expressed concern about a report that one of the arrested men had been enrolled in a flight school where training involved flying over the Pickering nuclear power plant.
Two other men were once found loitering outside the facility in April last year.
The men are alleged to have lied about their status and gained or maintained their status in Canada fraudulently.
All entered Canada before Sept. 5, 2001 - several days before Sept. 11 - and some have been in the country for more than five years.
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