- TORONTO -- A Toronto lawyer
will announce Thursday he is resigning from all national security cases
because of a death threat.
-
- Rocco Galati has been representing 20-year-old Abdurahman
Khadr, a Canadian man recently released from a U.S. military holding centre
in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He had been held on suspicion of terrorist links.
-
- A day after Monday's news conference with Khadr, Galati
says he discovered a message on his phone answering machine.
-
- "Well, Mr. Galati. What's this I hear about you
working with the terrorist now, helping to get that punk terrorist Khadr
off. You a dead wop," the message said.
-
- "It's a frightening call. It's not the run-of-the-mill,
usual sort of ranting and raving sort of lunatic hate call that you might
expect or usually get," said Galati. "It's obviously a direct
cold or professional call."
-
- Galati says he believes the call is a serious message
to back off national security cases. He didn't offer any further explanation.
-
- Galati says police have traced the call to a Mississauga
phone booth. Police placed his house under heightened alert for 911 calls,
but have offered no extra protection, he said.
-
- He said he no longer feels it's safe to handle national
security cases.
-
- "I can't in this atmosphere continue to represent
people at risk to my personal life," said Galati.
-
- "When I have no protection and am being refused
protection and I simply am not prepared to continue and I'm not going to
be representing this client or any other client."
-
- Galati has also represented Mahmoud Jaballah, a teacher
at an Islamic school in Toronto. He is accused of being a member of the
al-Qaeda-linked group, al-Jihad.
-
- Copyright (C) 2003 CBC. All rights reserved.
|
