- Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel must remain behind bars
until a court can decide whether he poses a legitimate threat to national
security, a judge ruled today.
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- Lawyers for Zundel, who has spent nearly a year in jail
since being deported to Canada by immigration authorities in the United
States, had argued that their client's detention was unconstitutional.
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- But in an 18-page written decision based on secret evidence
against Zundel, Federal Court Justice Pierre Blais disagreed, acknowledging
that he was not free to say exactly why.
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- "I have come to the conclusion, based on the information
presented to me in camera, that Mr. Zundel does represent a danger to the
security of Canada and should remain in detention for the time being,"
Blais said.
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- "I am constrained by the reality of national security
reasons which impede giving full expression to the grounds for continuing
the detention."
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- Zundel is being held on a security certificate while
the courts determine whether it is reasonable to deem the 64-year-old man
a security risk to Canada and to deport him to Germany.
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- The fact the case against him is a secret is precisely
why Zundel's detention is a violation of the Charter of Rights, lawyer
Peter Lindsay said after Blais's ruling was released.
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- "It's a bit like trying to grab smoke," Lindsay
said. "I'm in the dark totally."
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- In the ruling, Blais said he empathized with Zundel's
plight, but added that he "knew the gist of the case against him was
his link to individuals and groups who advocate violence against certain
groups in our society."
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- Zundel, who has lived in Canada since 1958, fled to Tennessee
to be with his wife prior to a January 2002 ruling by the Canadian Human
Rights Commission that a website he controlled spread anti-Semitic messages.
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- And while he has "virtually no history" of
violence, "his status within the White Supremacist Movement is such
that adherents are inspired to carry out his acts in pursuance of his ideology,"
Blais wrote.
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- Canadian authorities "believe that by his comportment
as leader and ideologue, Mr. Zundel intends serious violence to be a consequence
of his influence."
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- He went on to say the secret evidence paints "an
entirely different picture" than the one Zundel himself has depicted
in court.
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- "Mr. Zundel is not the avuncular figure looking
on with some indulgence on the wayward excesses of some misguided souls
who fail to understand his message of non-violence," Blais wrote.
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- "The evidence points to his own direct involvement
with groups he pretends to know very little about."
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- The hearing to evaluate the validity of the security
certificate was scheduled to continue Thursday, but Lindsay said he wants
it postponed so he can appeal an earlier Superior Court ruling that also
upheld the constitutionality of Zundel's detention as well as the Immigration
and Refugee Protection Act, the law under which he's being detained.
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- "There is a real unfairness in this whole process,
because the entire basis for the detention is secret evidence presented
by the government that I don't know about and Mr. Zundel doesn't know about."
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- Shortly after he was jailed last year upon his arrival
in Canada, Zundel applied for refugee status.
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- He was denied three times before Ottawa suspended the
application May 2, one day after the security certificate was issued.
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