TORONTO (CP) - The son of a suspected al-Qaida financier was free to re-apply for a Canadian passport Friday after a Federal Court judge ruled that Ottawa was wrong to deny Abdurahman Khadr's application two years ago on the basis of national security. But the win could be short-lived for Khadr, since the ruling by Justice Michael Phelan also made it clear that the federal government would be well within its rights to revoke the passport on those same grounds once it's granted. That didn't stop Khadr and lawyer Clayton Ruby from denouncing the March 2004 decision by former foreign affairs minister Bill Graham to deny the application on the basis of a law that had not yet been passed. "Not bad for a dictatorship, not good enough for Canada," Ruby said. "The grounds on which (Graham) made (his decision) were expressed in no Canadian law that then existed, namely national security grounds."
Ruby said he's confident Khadr's new application will be approved - and he vowed to head back to court if Ottawa tries to take it away again. "The passport is to be issued under the law as it then was, that's the court order," said Ruby. "If you want to revoke it later, go ahead but do it openly."