OTTAWA - Terror suspect Mohamed Harkat denies knowing al Qaeda operative Abu Zubaydah and disputes a federal claim he was ready to carry out instructions on behalf of the high-profile extremist.
Harkat told Federal Court on Tuesday he had no recollection of a conversation in which he was supposedly advised that Zubaydah wanted him to pay the legal fees of a Saudi man arrested upon arriving in Canada.
According to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Harkat told an unidentified acquaintance he was ready to pay $1,000 to help out Abu Messab Al Shehre if contacted by Zubaydah and told to do so.
Harkat allegedly said he didn't fear being called at home by Zubaydah and that he knew him personally.
Harkat acknowledges visiting Al Shehre, who was deported to Saudi Arabia as a security risk in 1997, while he was being held at an Ottawa detention centre.
But Harkat told the court there was no way he could have made the comments about legal fees "because I don't know Abu Zubaydah."
U.S. authorities captured Zubaydah in Pakistan. There has long been speculation he was tortured into giving up information, as well as debate about his role and stature in al Qaeda.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service alleges Harkat, arrested in December 2002, has ties to Zubaydah and other Islamic extremists.
The former gas-station attendant and pizza delivery man, who lives in Ottawa with wife Sophie, denies any involvement with terrorism.
Harkat says he is merely a refugee who fled his strife-torn Algerian homeland and worked with an aid agency in Pakistan before his 1995 arrival in Canada using a false Saudi passport.
The government is trying to deport Harkat using a national security certificate, a rarely employed immigration tool for removing suspected terrorists and spies.
He began a second day of testimony Tuesday at public hearings to test the validity of the security certificate.
Harkat, a native Arabic speaker who sometimes struggled to understand questions, denied all of the allegations tying him to extremist activities.
He said he had no recollection of a November 1996 conversation in which Al Shehre allegedly called from England and referred to him as Abu Muslim, an alias Harkat says he went by in Pakistan, where second names are common.
Harkat's defence team has argued that Harkat's admission he had a fake passport on arrival in Canada shows he was hardly an al Qaeda sleeper agent acting covertly.
Government lawyer David Tyndale noted Tuesday that during an earlier, aborted attempt to travel to Canada, Harkat did not bring his genuine Algerian passport with him.
Tyndale suggested Harkat brought the Algerian document with him on the second try only because he was worried Canadian officials would spot the Saudi one as a fake.
Harkat said he left his Algerian papers in Pakistan the first time because he intended to send for them later.
It is unclear whether the allegations concerning Zubaydah as well as a dozen other conversations said to involve Harkat are based on electronic intercepts or other intelligence-gathering methods such as human sources.
Webber said Tuesday it's unfair that Harkat has no idea how much of the evidence against him comes from CSIS wiretaps.
Webber pleaded with Federal Court Justice Simon Noel for an accounting of the spy service intercepts. "This is information I always wanted."
It should become clear Wednesday whether the government will divulge how many of the alleged conversations involving Harkat were picked up electronically.
Meantime, Noel advised Webber to assume all of the exchanges are the product of wiretaps.
