He’ll be tortured in Egypt, they assert, and that seems to be more important than the fact that he hoped to cause the deaths of large numbers of Canadians. From the Toronto Star:
The federal government has failed to justify the drastic step of sending a suspected terrorist back to Egypt given the high likelihood he would be tortured there, his lawyers argued today.
In a court challenge to Ottawa’s decision to deport Mahmoud Jaballah, 41, his lawyers said the government would be trampling on both his human rights and the fundamental principles of justice without any compelling reason to do so.“Mr. Jaballah will be subjected to torture if he is returned to Egypt,” lawyer Barbara Jackman told Federal Court.
“There is a chance he could be (killed), which would be irreversible torture.”
Much of the legal argument centred on a Supreme Court of Canada decision that people facing the risk of torture in their homelands should be deported only under “exceptional circumstances.”
There was no indication those special circumstances existed and therefore no reason to send Jaballah back to his homeland, Jackman told Judge Andrew Mackay.
“We are not in a state of emergency,” Jackman said. “We are not in a time of war. There is no epidemic. There is no catastrophe.”…
Don MacIntosh told Mackay that Jaballah was an integral member of the Egyptian terrorist group al-Jihad with ties to senior members of Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda.
Everyone in Canada has the right to be protected from “evil terrorist organizations” and “people like Mr. Jaballah,” MacIntosh said.
“The continued presence of Mr. Jaballah in Canada threatens the lives of Canadians and their allies.”
Co-defence lawyer John Norris argued that not even the war on terrorism could be used as an excuse under international law to justify torture – even if national security was at stake.
“What we know very clearly is that this war may not be fought at any cost,” Norris said.