taken up militant activities upon their release. Another CSIS agent identified only as J.P., the Deputy Chief of Counterterrorism and Counterproliferation in the Ottawa Regional Office as of 2005, testified against the petitions for release by Almrei, Jaballah and Charkaoui. J.P. also testified that the Peshawar guest house had been "associated with al-Qaeda... since 1984", although even the most liberal estimates suggest that the group did not exist until 1988-1990. Almrei was ordered released under house arrest by Federal Court Justice Richard Mosley on January 2, 2009, under strict monitoring conditions including an electronic tracking leg-bracelet. This judge was a federal assistant deputy justice minister who helped draft Canada's post 9/11 anti-terror laws before being appointed in 2003. Release On December 14, 2009, more than eight years after his arrest, the same judge who ordered his house arrest disposed the security certificate against him. The judge concluded that the evidence – both secret and public – against him did not hold up to scrutiny. While there were "reasonable grounds to believe that Hassan Almrei was a danger to the security of Canada when he was detained in 2001" he concluded that "there are no longer reasonable grounds to believe that he is a security risk today". In a comment this was paraphrased: what was reasonable in 2001 because much was unknown, was not reasonable anymore in 2009, The court was critical of CSIS and the federal ministers of Public Safety and Immigration, who signed a new certificate in 2008 against Almrei and four others. Mosley said CSIS and the ministers "breached their duties of utmost good faith and candour to the court by not thoroughly reviewing the information in their possession, prior to the issuance of the February 2008 certificate." Earlier in 2009, another judge threw out a security certificate against Adil Charkaoui, after the Canadian Security Intelligence Service withdrew secret evidence, fearing its disclosure would jeopardize its sources. References 1974 births Living people Syrian Sunni Muslims Syrian refugees People imprisoned on charges of terrorism Syrian people imprisoned abroad Prisoners and detainees of Canada Syrian emigrants to Saudi Arabia Publication bans in Canadian case law