Securing Canada's Interests Against Crime and Terrorism

"[Al-Muzir Es-Sayyid, 22, is ordered deported to Egypt] as soon as it is realistically feasible [in view of his] pre-meditated well-planned robberies involving weapons and threats of violence against mostly vulnerable and marginalized women [and his] lack of rehabilitation in spite of probation and incarceration."
"[Al-Muzir Es-Sayyid is a] danger to the public of Canada [which his gangster lifestyle drew 16 criminal convictions for, including armed robbery, carrying a concealed weapon and possession of heroin]."
Federal Court of Canada January 2012

The son of Egyptian-born Mahmoud Jaballah led a life of crime whose activities led to arrests on counts of threatening, possession of stolen property, assault, theft, robbery, obstructing a police officer, carrying a concealed weapon, and a series of armed robberies. In December of 2010 — while still in prison for robbing women working in massage parlours in Toronto — he was found with three grams of heroin.

This is the son of a 54-year-old man whom the Government of Canada considers to be a member of the terrorist group al-Jihad, and whom it is intent on removing from Canada. A series of national security certificates have been used, recognized as a tool for the removal of suspected terrorists and spies from abroad. Granted, the sins of the son cannot be visited upon the father, but the sins of the father inform the son's.

Mahmoud Jaballah speaks to a reporter outside the Federal Court building in Toronto in 2009. Jaballah, an Egyptian, was under a national security certificate because of alleged ties to Al-Qaeda. (Colin Perkel/Canadian Press)

When this man and his family entered Canada in 1996 seeking refugee status, claiming to be on Egyptian authorities' wanted list on charges of inciting violence, so that he would be killed if denied entry and returned, he used a false Saudi passport to gain entry and credibility. The use of a false passport, and false declarations nullify legal entry to Canada. Both can be used by government to rescind citizenship, as well.

A Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) investigation caused the first of three security certificates to be issued and the most recent one dates from early 2008. Federal Court Justice Dolores Hanson in May ruled that government had failed to establish reasonable grounds proving that Jaballah represents a danger to the security of the country.

And nor would she assent to the charge that this man was ever a member of al-Jihad, or that he had provided the group with support, a group advocating violence against the government of Egypt. The government is now left attempting to have that ruling overturned, the certificate upheld, filing notice with the Federal Court of Appeal.

Even though government agencies feel they have just cause for deportation of those identified as foreign-born terrorism suspects, it has run up against a brick wall in some court cases where security certificates were lifted. And even though a special security-cleared lawyer protects the interest of the person the certificate names, civil libertarians claim certificates are 'unfair'.

As though the issue relates to some petty criminals preying on an underclass of Canadian citizens whose lives are of little note to other, law-abiding citizens whose sense of outrage is readily provoked at the very thought of civil liberty infractions, even when those 'infractions' target elements within society who have infiltrated the social milieu with intentions that are disruptive, violent and criminal.