Somali groups call on feds to help Canadian at risk of execution

The federal government should intervene to help a Canadian man who has been held for 1½ years in an Ethiopian prison, where he may be facing the death penalty, says a group of Somali Canadians.

Bashir Ahmed Makhtal, 36, who has been a Canadian citizen since 1994, was among dozens of people captured at the border between Somalia and Kenya in December 2006. Last month, the Ethiopian Embassy in Canada reported that Makhtal has been charged with terrorism-related activities after being transferred to a prison in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. That means he could face the death penalty.

Since being imprisoned, Makhtal has reportedly been denied access to lawyers and consular officials, despite the efforts of Canadian diplomatic officials in Ethiopia, his Toronto lawyer Lorne Waldman told CBC News.

An e-mail from Makhtal's relatives in Toronto this past week alleges he has been threatened by Ethiopian officials at the prison and given 12 days from July 9 to confess to terrorism related crimes.

Abdikadir Guled, a member of an Ottawa group calling on the federal government to intervene in Makhtal's case, said the Ethiopian government's "dismal" reputation in matters of international justice make this case urgent.

"For them to do something underground and rush to a conclusion in this case, and even terminate his life is an imminent danger," Guled said.

Fowsia Abdulkadir, another member of the group, said the federal government must intervene on Makhtal's behalf.

"What is needed now is more of a political pressure than the diplomatic wait and see what happens," she said.

Her group has been lobbying MPs and trying to mobilize human rights groups in the National Capital Region to take up Makhtal's cause.

40 other foreigners released: Guled

According to Waldman, Makhtal was born in an ethnic Somalian region of Ethiopia called Ogaden.

He moved to Somalia at the age of 11, then fled the country when he was a teenager, eventually arriving in Canada as a refuge in 1991. He became a Canadian citizen in 1994 and holds no other citizenship. He lived, studied and worked in Toronto, and also has a cousin in Hamilton, Ont.

In 2001, Makhtal returned to Kenya to run a used clothing business, which often took him to Somalia. He was in Somalia when Ethiopia invaded in December 2006 in a move against the Council of Islamic Courts, a group that controlled much of Somalia's south.

Makhtal was part of a group of 41 foreign nationals captured at the border between Somalia and Kenya, Guled said.

"All of them were released to their governments except for Makhtal, who is the only westerner who remains in captivity," Guled added.

He believes that is largely because Makhtal's grandfather "was a champion of freedom fighting" in Ethiopia's Ogaden region, where a group of ethnic Somalians is fighting for independence.

The lack of intervention by Canadian officials is also part of the problem, Guled said.

Waldman said Makhtal was initially imprisoned in Kenya, and his transfer to Ethiopia was illegal.

"This was done illegally without any legal authorization, court authorization —in contravention of international law and Kenyan law," Waldman said.

Aid should be used as leverage: lawyer

Because he was travelling on a Canadian passport, Makhtal should have been deported to Canada. Deportation elsewhere is known as rendition, a practice brought to light by Maher Arar's deportation from the U.S. to Syria in 2002.

At the time of Makhtal's transfer from Kenya, a government spokesman said Canada's Foreign Affairs department had strongly objected to the move and raised the issue with the highest officials in Kenya.

Waldman said Ethiopia has refused to let Canadian officials see Makhtal citing the ongoing investigation, and lawyers have been told Makhtal is not at the prison in Addis Ababa.

"At a certain point when the normal diplomatic measures don't work, you have to go to a higher level," Waldman said.

He pointed out that the Canadian government provides about $100 million a year in aid to Ethiopia and said that should be used as leverage to protect the rights of one of its own citizens.

NDP MP Paul Dewar, who represents Ottawa Centre, agrees.

"You know there needs to be more strength in our representation of Canadian citizens when these things happen and there should be no tolerance for this rendition process which he went through," Dewar said.

In the meantime, he said he's glad that Somalians across Canada are rallying in support of Makhtal.

"It shows that the Somali community here in Ottawa is showing leadership, the leadership that is not being taken by our government," Dewar said.