Former Iraq hostage Loney supports bail for accused Egyptian terrorist Jaballah

He may only leave the house with prior approval, and then only to approved destinations.

"I am willing to accept any conditions that will allow me to be close my children," Jaballah, 43, told Justice Carol Layden-Stevenson.

"They need their father to be with them."

Jaballah is contesting his designation as a national security risk based on evidence he has not been allowed to see.

He also maintains that if he's sent back to Egypt, he will be tortured or killed.

"If my client is released from custody, it may be the last time in his life he gets to spend time with his family," said Copeland.

Outside the courtroom, Jaballah's wife said she was "heartbroken" by the ongoing separation.

"My husband is all my life," Husnah Jaballah, 46, said in an interview as tears welled in her eyes.

She described the bail conditions imposed on Harkat as draconian.

"I felt that I wanted to faint," she said after hearing them.

"Even so, I am willing to take any conditions."

Christian peace activist James Loney, who spent four months as a hostage in Iraq before being freed by British special forces in March, showed up at the courthouse to express solidarity with Jaballah.

"You cannot indefinitely deprive a person of their freedom on the pretext that they may be a threat," Loney, 41, said outside court.

"Any number of us may be a threat to society, and that's not sufficient cause for doing that."

Loney is promising to put up $250 cash and pledge another $750 as part of a total $124,000 surety proposed by friends and family for Jaballah.

Loney said he was touched when Jaballah and two other suspected terrorists detained in Canada had written an open letter to the kidnappers pleading for the hostages' safe release.

Jaballah, who testified via video link from his eastern Ontario detention facility, said he co-wrote the letter because he felt a kinship with the hostages and disagreed with the kidnappers.

"If they were Muslims who believed in Islam, they had no right to kidnap innocent people," Jaballah testified.

Jaballah's youngest child, eight-year-old Ossama, said he wanted his dad home.

"I want to stay with him and have fun with him," the restless youngster said during a recess.

Jaballah was arrested in August 2001 on an unprecedented second national security certificate after the first one was quashed.

The second certificate, based largely on the same evidence, was later upheld as reasonable, but the matter was returned to court for another look, and a decision is currently pending.

In cross-examination, Crown lawyer Donald MacIntosh said Jaballah's seven arrests in Egypt between 1981 and 1991 - when he spent a total of more than 3 1/2 years in custody - showed he "must have been a pretty important person."

Jaballah denied any links to terror groups.

The hearing continues Tuesday.

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