- Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel is suing the federal government
for $10-million, claiming he was unjustly held in solitary confinement
and deported to Germany.
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- In a statement of claim filed yesterday, Mr. Zundel said
that his treatment at the hands of the government was illegal and unconstitutional.
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- Mr. Justice Pierre Blais of the Federal Court ruled in
February that Mr. Zundel was a threat to national security and that he
had tried to develop and maintain a global network of groups with an interest
in a "right-wing, extremist, neo-Nazi mindset."
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- Mr. Zundel was deported to Germany in March, jailed there,
and charged with inciting racial hatred.
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- Judge Blais said it was reasonable to hold Mr. Zundel
in jail in Canada under the controversial security certificate process,
which allows secret hearings that are closed to the accused and their lawyers.
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- Government lawyers will try to have Mr. Zundel's suit
thrown out at a hearing in the Federal Court on Nov. 23.
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- Mr. Zundel says in his court filing that the government
is trying to block his suit before the Supreme Court of Canada rules on
the constitutionality of security certificates.
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- The top court has said it will examine the issue in two
cases involving Hassan Almrei and Adil Charkaoui, who are suspected of
being terrorists.
- Mr. Zundel's lawyer, Peter Lindsay, said Mr. Zundel was
held and deported "based on a process that we argue is blatantly unconstitutional
and contrary to every sense of justice that any normal person would have.
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- "The rules of justice have to apply to everyone,
even Ernst Zundel," Mr. Lindsay said.
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- In his claim, Mr. Zundel said the government's actions
caused him "colossal damages arising from his hasty deportation which
can neither be mitigated against nor reversed."
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