The Globe and Mail – June 1, 2011
Quebec has blocked government child-benefit payments to Abousfian Abdelrazik, the only Canadian on the UN’s al-Qaeda blacklist, saying Ottawa must get written permission from the UN Security Council in New York before it will issue the monthly cheques other Canadian parents are entitled to receive. Mr. Abdelrazik is entitled to $183 a month for a preschool-age son, born in Khartoum but who is a Canadian and was repatriated after he returned to Montreal. He has also applied for child-benefit payments for his teenage daughter.
Mr. Abdelrazik has never been charged with a crime in Canada, although he was targeted as a possible al-Qaeda operative and followed by Canadian counterterrorism agents for years. He is the only Canadian on the UN’s terrorist blacklist, called the 1267 list after the number of the Security Council resolution, co-sponsored by Canada, that created it in 1999. He spent nearly six years in forced exile in Sudan, including more than two years in prison where, he claims, he was tortured. He is currently suing the federal government and former foreign minister Lawrence Cannon for $27-million, claiming Canadian agents arranged for his imprisonment in Khartoum and were complicit in his torture.
Canada’s enforcement of UN 1267 sanctions means Mr. Abdelrazik cannot work – because it would be a crime to pay him – and his assets, including the estate of his former wife who died of cancer, have been seized.
