The Toronto lawyer representing former terror suspect Abdurahman Khadr was close to tears today as he announced he would no longer handle such cases because he had received a death threat he's taking seriously.

"I'm not on the verge of tears for my safety,"  a shaken Rocco Galati told a hastily called news conference.

"I'm on the verge of tears because it means we not 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."

From his office on a College Street strip known as Little Italy, Galati played a message left on his telephone answering machine Tuesday to reporters.  The message, using a racial slur, said Galati would be a "dead wop" and cursed him for getting "punk terrorist" Khadr off.

The call came one day after Galati held a news conference with Khadr, a Canadian citizen freed from a US - run military prison in Cuba after two years in captivity. Galati had pressed the Canadian government to facilitate the return to Khadr to Canada.

Khadr told reporters neither he nor his family has any links to terrorism, but admitted he spent three months in 1998 learning to use Russian assault rifles at an Al Qaeda-linked camp in Afghanistan.

Galati said he had received numerous threatening calls in the past, but he was taking the one Tuesday very seriously, although he wouldn't say why.

"The pigs know the mud they roll in," he said.  "Why do I know?  I work in this area and any lawyer will tell you the same thing.  They can tell a serious threat from a loon and this is a serious threat."

Galati with his lawyer, Paul Slansky, sitting beside him, said he believed the threatening message was from someone involved with a U.S. or Canadian intelligence agency.  He added it was the third time he had heard the male voice and that one of his clients disappeared after one of the calls.

Galati refused to be more specific and said he didn't know what agency the person may have belonged to.  He said part of the reason he's dropping all his security-risk cases is because police have refused to offer him protection.

A Toronto police spokeswoman said today that police wouldn't comment on Galati's case.

A call to the  Canadian Security Intelligence Service in Ottawa for comment wasn't immediately returned.

Federal Solicitor General Wayne Easter would say only that:  "The RCMP, CSIS, the other services that are involved in security and public safety in this country will protect his rights as they will anyone else."

Canadian security expert John Thompson said while he doesn't blame Galati for taking the death threat seriously, he couldn't see a security agency behind such a move.

"Usually police are aware of their responsibilities and they also know what can make a case go wrong," said Thompson, head of the Mackenzie Institute, a non-profit organization concerned with security issues. "Acting as a vigilante outside the rules is so unprofessional that they wouldn't do it."

However, added Thompson, "there are private individuals who could deliver such a threat and might make good on such a threat."

Galati, who was called to the bar in 1989, is a former federal Justice Department lawyer who specializes in security cases and tax law.

Before his news conference today, Galati officially withdrew as lawyer for Abdellah Ouzghar, a Hamilton resident who is in the process of being deported for his conviction in France of falsifying passports.

"I have a family," Galati said of his reasons.  "This is serious.  This is an institutional threat.  It's not an individual threat."

Police traced Tuesday's call - through a phone number that appeared on the call display on Galati's phone - to a phone booth in Mississauga just west of Toronto, said Slansky.

Slansky said the call was reported to RCMP, who would not act unless Toronto police did.

Toronto police have denied Galati's request for personal protection, but have put his house on alert for 911 calls, said Slansky.

Galati's "retirement" from representing some of Canada's most high profile terrorist suspects comes the same month as he was featured in Canadian Lawyer magazine as a "gutsy constitutional litigator" who "has emerged as a defender of the downtrodden."

Galati, a single father, said he has received numerous threatening calls in the past.  The news conference was told he has also found a strangled cat on his doorstep and received threatening letter on Ku Klux Klan letterhead.