The security certificate case proceeded without direct evidence against Almrei

Evidence

In the wake of powerful images of an Islamic takeover, the facts that don’t add up hardly matter. Madame Justice Layden-Stevenson accepts that the Service had no specifics connecting Almrei’s honey business to Al Qaeda, and that they had relied on a single media article by Judith Miller, a journalist whose ‘record of accuracy’ has been called into question, a situation of which J.P. was unaware. She also observes that J.P. could offer no direct evidence of Almrei’s link to remaining insurgents in Chechnya, especially given Ibn Khattab’s death. Similarly, J.P. could not offer proof that Almrei had supplied false documents to Nabil Al Marabh, whom the Service conceded was released by the United States. Clearly short on specifics, the Service is only able to maintain that its basis for the allegation that Almrei supported Islamic extremist ideals is the fact that he lived at a guest house of Ibn Khattab and that there was ‘ideological consistency between Khattab and Bin Laden.’ J.P. also insists that Almrei’s repeated trips to Afghanistan indicate ‘a certain level of dedication which is not typical of an individual who is a peaceful member of society.’ A notion such as ‘ideological consistency’ can only assume the weight that it does here if the framework is one of disease spreading. — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 117

Categorization

• QUESTION: What evidence threshold was eventually applied, and did Canadian courts ever overturn this reliance on ‘ideological consistency’? Worth checking the Almrei Federal Court decision trajectory.