MONTREAL — When you're the lone Canadian blacklisted as a terrorist by the United Nations, everyday life has its constraints.

Abousfian Abdelrazik can't board a plane or open a bank account. The Canadian government is liable to sanction anyone who gives him a job, or money, or even a present.

Being a suspected al Qaeda member hasn't really helped his social life, either.

Abdelrazik expected better when a Federal Court judge cleared him to return to Canada last summer after six years in Sudan, which included two stints in prison and 14 months in the lobby of the Canadian embassy.

Despite his freedom, he remains a suspect in the eyes of the international community.

"I still feel like I'm in a prison," Abdelrazik says. "Even as I walk on the street, I feel isolated mentally from society."

He says he's consoled by the conviction that he's done nothing wrong. A devoted group of supporters who believe Abdelrazik are helping him challenge the constitutionality of the sanctions levied against people on the list.

They are seeking to capitalize on growing international doubts about the fairness of a list that has ballooned in recent years to include almost 400 names of suspected al Qaeda and Taliban figures.

Abdelrazik was placed on the UN's terror watch list in 2006, likely by the United States.

The only other Canadian to have appeared on the list is Ahmed Said Khadr, the head of the Khadr family who died in 2003.

Both CSIS and the RCMP have since acknowledged they have no evidence against Abdelrazik. He was exonerated of any ties with al Qaeda by the Sudanese justice department in 2005.

But efforts to have his name removed from the list have been unsuccessful. The federal government and other authorities have continued applying the sanctions.

Ottawa cited the list while refusing to grant Abdelrazik travel documents after he was released from a Sudanese prison, where he alleges he was tortured.

He spent months in legal limbo where he slept at the Canadian embassy in Khartoum.

Upon returning to Canada last June, Abdelrazik sought to open a bank account in order to cash a cheque for $10,000 he planned to use to support his children.

The Royal Bank refused his request, citing his presence on the list.

Quebec's credit union agreed -- then immediately froze the account after he deposited the cheque, which comprised the survivor's pension from his first wife who died in 2002.

It also cited security concerns.

Abdelrazik now lives in a cramped apartment in Montreal's west end with his 27-year-old stepdaughter and his 16-year-old daughter.

"I am the one who is supposed to take care of my children," he says. "But financially, I'm not useful for them."

Abdelrazik hasn't even bothered seeking a job. Under UN Security Council Resolution 1267, Ottawa has the power to punish anyone who provides him with material support. In any case, even if he got a paycheque, he couldn't withdraw the funds from his bank account.

He gets by on cash raised by supporters. After a court battle, he won an injunction that recently allowed him limited monthly withdrawals from his credit union account.

A group of unions, led by the Canadian Labour Congress, has announced a plan to hire Abdelrazik in order to test Ottawa's commitment to upholding the sanctions.

"The UN is the body that passed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and (the sanctions are) a fundamental violation of those principles," says Hassan Yussuff, secretary-treasurer of the CLC.

Abdelrazik will be paid union wages in order to publicize his ordeal. The unions are hoping it will push Ottawa to renew its efforts to have Abdelrazik taken off the list.

Canada tried to have Abdelrazik's name removed from the UN list in 2007, but was rebuffed. Any member of the Security Council can veto a de-listing request without offering an explanation.

"We are extremely frustrated and we are going to keep the pressure up," says Yussuff.

The Security Council committee responsible for the list is, however, showing no sign of reconsidering its position on Abdelrazik. Though it has de-listed several individuals as part of an ongoing review, Abdelrazik's status was confirmed in May.

It maintains Abdelrazik received terrorist training in Afghanistan during the 1990s, became acquainted with Osama Bin Laden, and was a member of a terrorist cell in Montreal that also included Ahmed Ressam, the so-called Millennium Bomber.

It says he twice tried to join Islamist militants in Chechnya.

But the lack of an appeals process is proving problematic for jurists, both in Canada and elsewhere.

"There is nothing in the listing or de-listing procedure that recognizes the principles of natural justice or that provides for basic procedural fairness," Federal Court Justice Russel Zinn wrote in the ruling that effectively ordered Ottawa to bring Abdelrazik home.

In the United Kingdom, a recent Supreme Court decision struck down the asset freezes on listed suspects, calling them "draconian." The European Union's Court of Human Rights has issued a similar ruling.

"There is a growing suspicion, including in the United States, about the 1267 list," said Wesley Wark, a former member of the Prime Minister's Advisory Council on National Security.

"(Abdelrazik's) is not an isolated case and that may work in its favour in terms of Canadian government policy or what the Federal Court decides because it will look at that broader international context," said Wark, a professor at the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies.

The UN itself has acknowledged the widespread criticism. The chairman of the 1267 committee, Austrian diplomat Thomas Mayr-Harting, told a briefing recently that the group planned to "introduce further elements of fairness and transparency."

A newly appointed ombudsman, Canadian jurist and former International Criminal Tribunal judge Kimberly Prost, will oversee de-listing requests and make recommendations to the committee.

That would provide another avenue for Abdelrazik to seek redress. Along with his Federal Court challenge to the sanctions regime, he is also suing Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon and the federal government for $27 million.

As Abdelrazik's supporters weigh their next move, he continues to struggle to restore some normalcy in his life.

He has maintained some friendships from before his fateful trip to Sudan in 2003, but he says making new friends has been difficult.

"People are afraid. They don't want to be in contact with me," he says.

"I am slowly trying to adapt with dealing with my kids and my friends. A lot was destroyed by this situation and it is hard to build it again."