BEN SIMON
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
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Now, Ali Abdi Aziz, a Somali-born Canadian, is a free man and considering a trip to Toronto after Ugandan prosecutors dropped all charges against him.
“Maybe now I can relax,” the 38-year-old said. “I just want to take time, go back to Canada, and have my holiday there.”
Shuffled between the anti-terrorism and military intelligence headquarters, he recalled being questioned about his connections to a man named Mukhtar.
Mr. Aziz, who was cleared by prosecutors last week, but available to speak publicly only over the weekend, assumed his interrogators were asking about a property investor with whom he had previously dealt.
He was amazed, he said, to learn they were actually talking about Mukhtar Robow, senior commander of al-Shabab, the Somali Islamist rebels committed to toppling the weak Western-backed government that controls only patches of Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital.
“In my head, I’m not thinking they are associating me with Mukhtar Robow,” Mr. Aziz recalled. “I am completely naive on that.”
During an interrogation with both Ugandan and U.S. investigators, someone “spilled the beans,” according to Mr. Aziz.
“One of the Ugandan investigators just mentioned Mukhtar Robow,” he recounted over a cup of tea in central Kampala.
“Now I’m all worked up, telling the investigator, ‘You guys think I assisted Mukhtar Robow in Uganda?’ ” At a later meeting, Mr. Aziz said, a U.S. official privately acknowledged that the allegation was absurd.
There was no way, this American said, that Mr. Robow, a prominent al-Shabab leader who has publicly threatened to attack Uganda for supporting the Mogadishu government, could slip into the country and leave again undetected.
This American, Mr. Aziz said, assured him that the charges against him would eventually be dropped.
Over the next four months, Mr. Aziz said, he was interrogated only once more, otherwise spending 23 a days alone in a cell.
He said he took strength from the fact he knew he’d done nothing wrong, but was also bolstered by visits from Canada's Kampala-based consular staff.
“It felt good in a sense. At least you know that your country is taking care of you,” he said.
Born in Somalia, Mr. Aziz left the chronically war-ravaged country as an infant. He spent his youth in Kenya and moved to Toronto at 15, attending Eastern Commerce Collegiate Institute. After high school, he studied commerce at the University of Toronto.
He was driven back to East Africa by both marital and business opportunities, but said he is anxious to reconnect with family in Toronto and Edmonton after repairing the damage done to his regional cement exporting business during his incarceration.
After spending five months in jail due to confusion about a last name, Mr. Aziz showed no resentment.
“It happened,” he said. “I have no grudge.”
Special to The Globe and Mail