Canadian marooned in Sudan 5 years

OTTAWA, Jan. 6 (UPI) -- A Sudanese Canadian citizen has been living in the lobby of the Canadian embassy in Khartoum for eight months, unable to get a passport home.

Abousfian Abdelrazik first came under the scrutiny of Canadian, U.S. and Sudanese anti-terror investigators five years ago, and has since spent two stints in a Khartoum jail for interrogation. The U.S. Bush administration labeled him a terrorist and had his name added to the U.N. Security Council's air travel blacklist, which is part of why he's marooned, a Globe and Mail correspondent reported.

Two years ago, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police issued a statement saying Abdelrazik had been thoroughly investigated, but nothing was found to link him to terror groups.

Although the U.N. allows a blacklisted person to fly to their home country, Canada has yet to issue him a passport and "the costs of the charter (flight) and the government escorts would be prohibitive," Foreign Affairs officials wrote in a report to ministers.

In the meantime, Abdelrazik has been living in the embassy lobby trying to find a way back to his wife and children in Montreal, the Toronto newspaper said.