A suspected Egyptian terrorist, with alleged links to Osama bin Laden, has lost his battle against extradition, a court official was quoted by AFP as saying Thursday.
An official at the Supreme Court of Canada said the court had ruled that it had no jurisdiction to rule on the appeal against the deportation of Mohamed Zeki Mahgoub, 41.
Mahjoub will remain in a Toronto jail where he has been held since June 2000 awaiting an end to his deportation process, the CNews reported.
While the Supreme Court does not give reasons in decisions on leaves to appeal, the case was referred to the high court directly from the trial division of Federal Court, not from its appeal division or other courts.
Mahjoub's lawyer, Rocco Galati, told Cnews that he will turn to Ontario courts for a ruling on the constitutional issues he says deny his client his rights.
"The statute doesn't allow me to go the Federal Court of Appeal," Galati said Thursday. "I have to go to the Ontario Superior Court now."
He said he will also fight Mahgoub's deportation on grounds his client will almost certainly be executed if he is returned to Egypt, where he has been convicted in absentia terrorist activities.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service says Mahjoub belongs to a militant Islamic organization.
On Oct. 5, a Federal Court of Canada trial judge upheld a ministerial certificate declaring him a national security threat. That cleared the way for his deportation to Egypt.
According to the report, Mahgoub has admitted working on a Sudanese farm operated by bin Laden, the dissident Saudi millionaire now considered the principal suspect in terrorist attacks last month on New York and Washington.
Egyptian authorities have believed for 15 years that Mahgoub is part of a bin Laden-financed organization called the Vanguards of Conquest, a radical faction of a group called Al Jihad that has its roots in a violent campaign to overthrow the Egyptian government.
Mahgoub told court in March that he was fleeing persecution in his homeland when he traveled to Saudi Arabia and later to Sudan, where bin Laden offered him a job on a factory farm.
He denied knowing that bin Laden is a notorious terrorist financier or that the people he was working with were members of bin Laden's militant Islamic faction, Al Qaeda – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
