A prominent Toronto lawyer known for defending national security cases says he won't be handling any more. Rocco Galati says he's heeding a frightening death threat over his handling the case of Abdul Rahman Khadr.

Galati says he received the threat on his answering machine the day after he held a news conference with Khadr, a Canadian citizen recently returned to Toronto after two years in a U.S.-run military prison in Cuba.

The short message from a man's voice says: "Well, Mr. Galati. What's this I hear about you working with the terrorist now, helping to get that (expletive) punk terrorist Khadr off. You a dead wop."

"I received the message. I take it seriously. And I am withdrawing from all my national security cases," Galati told reporters Thursday.

Galati says be believes the message was from someone involved with a U.S. intelligence agency. He says the voice is familiar to him and his counsel, Paul Slansky, from a previous case.

"This is serious. This is an institutional threat. It's not an individual threat," Galati said, with Slansky at his side.

"The voice is similar and likely the same as a voice of someone who threatened one of our former clients," he said, adding later that "in that case, our client disappeared."

"This message is different from the run-of-the-mill rantings and ravings that one as a lawyer will normally receive."

"Any lawyer call tell a serious threat from a loon, and this is a serious threat."

Police traced Tuesday's call to a phone booth in Mississauga, Ont., Slansky told the news conference.

Galati says he went to local police and the RCMP requesting protection, but they refused. He says all they did was to put his house on alert for 911 emergency calls. He says he doesn't feel safe enough to continue handling national security cases.

A Toronto police spokeswoman refused to comment on Galati's case.

As he spoke, he choked back tears but said it wasn't because he feared for his safety.

"I'm on the verge of tears because it means we now live in Colombia because the rule of law is meaningless. It means that lawyers cannot represent anyone even in what you profess to be a democracy here in Canada."

In Ottawa, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) called Galati's suggestion that intelligence agencies may have been behind the threat "absurd."

"The allegation that CSIS had any involvement in the death threat, that's absurd," spokesperson Nicole Currier told The Canadian Press.

Galati has represented many high-profile cases concerning allegations of terrorism and national security. But he says now, having been refused protection, he's dropping them all.

In his latest case, Galati, who was called to the bar in 1989, pressed Ottawa to help return Khadr to Canada. He has been a strong advocate for Khadr since his repatriation.

Khadr has insisted that neither he nor his family has any links to terrorism. He admitted to training at an "al Qaeda-related training camp" in Afghanistan in 1998, but denied his family has ties to Osama bin Laden.

Khadr's brother Omar remains in custody in Guantanamo Bay, the lone Canadian citizen there. Like the more than 660 other detainees, he has not been charged with any crime.

Galati's other clients have included accused Al Jihad member Mahmoud Jaballah, who was held in solitary confinement for more than two years without charge.

Before his talking to the media Thursday, Galati also withdrew as lawyer for Abdellah Ouzghar, a Hamilton resident who is in the process of being deported to France based on a conviction of falsifying passports.