Under cross-examination by Paul Copeland, a lawyer for Harkat, P.G. made statements which raised questions about the policies and procedures of the CSIS. For one thing, P.G. acknowledged that the information in his paper about how 10 detainees released from Guantanamo Bay had rejoined terror groups originated in a Washington Post story. Copeland noted that P.G.’s official paper omitted information indicating that the 10 suspects who re-offended were among 202 detainees released from the U.S.-run prison facility and asked why this figure was not in the paper. P.G. said that when he wrote the paper, “it did not seem as if [the 202 figure] was important for the paper,” at least in part because CSIS did not have information on what had happened to the other 192 suspects who had been released.

Copeland also asked P.G. if he had looked into whether any of the information that the CSIS had collected regarding Harkat’s alleged terror links had come from captured Al Qaeda leaders who might have been subjected to “torture” by foreign agencies that had held or questioned them. Copeland noted that the Canadian government stated that some of the information it used to build its detention and deportation case against Harkat came from Abu Zubaydah, the captured Al Qaeda training-camp chief who, according to U.S. news reports, may have been subjected to harsh treatment while in U.S. custody. (Zubaydah is believed to be currently held by the U.S. government in a secret CIA detention facility overseas.) P.G. told the court that while he was concerned about the possibility that some of the intelligence may have come from detainees who had been tortured, he had “never, personally, asked any individual whether or not specific information was obtained under torture.”

CSIS spokeswoman Campion said that as a small agency, her service had to rely heavily on intelligence-sharing relationships with foreign intelligence services, and she insisted that it was CSIS practice not to rely on “single source” information. She said that while the CSIS does “take what we’re given,” the service is concerned about possible mistreatment of sources and “always” corroborates the information from multiple sources before using it against someone. She noted that earlier in the Harkat case, a judge ruled that because of concern that Abu Zubaydah may have been been mistreated, the court would ignore any information he supplied about Harkat. Nonetheless, the judge ruled there was sufficient other evidence for authorities to detain Harkat. Campion added that CSIS operations were subject to detailed and regular scrutiny by a government oversight panel called the Security and Intelligence Review Committee.

Apart from his pessimism about the possibility that jihadi suspects could somehow reform and be released back into society, P.G. predicted that Al Qaeda and related groups are likely to persist and prosper whether or not Osama bin Laden remains alive and at its helm. “In this regard, we are in a no-win situation,” P.G. testified. “If Osama bin Laden remains at large, he remains a rallying cry, and a symbol for his organization, and as a paragon, if you will, of resistance to the West. If Osama bin Laden is killed and/or captured, he becomes a martyr to the cause of Islamic extremism and the war against the West. I think in either case, Mr. Bin Laden’s removal from the scene is irrelevant, in the sense that Al Qaeda has already set the standard for international Islamic extremism.”