Ex-LTTEer ordered to remain in custody

13 April 2011 05:33 am Views - 4018

A Federal Court judge has ordered a former member of the LTTE to remain in custody after he was denied refugee status in Canada.

Judge Sean Harrington said the man - identified only as B456 - had connections to the Tamil Tigers and granted a stay of a release order.

"He is nothing but a bold-faced liar," Harrington said in a strongly worded decision released Tuesday.

"It has been established beyond doubt that if he is not still a Tamil Tiger, he certainly was. He was in the armed naval wing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam a terrorist organization."

Harrington went on to say that man was "maddeningly vague" as to when his association with the Tamil Tigers ended. The judge said the man's "web of deceit" was finally cast aside during interviews with Canada Border Service Agency officers.

He's one of 490 Sri Lankan Tamils who came to Canada in August 2010 on board the undocumented ship the MV Sun Sea. He carried no identification papers but, like the others, filed a claim for refugee status.

The migrant was previously declared inadmissible to Canada by the Immigration and Refugee Board and has been ordered deported - he's one of only two men aboard the ship facing deportation.

Once a person has been deemed inadmissible, their refugee claim is effectively terminated. But the man has demanded a Pre-Removal Risk Assessment be done before he's deported.

A member of the IRB ordered the man to remain in custody last February because he was considered a flight risk while facing deportation.
But another IRB adjudicator, Daphne Shaw Dyck, decided last month that the man should be released from custody.

(The Vancouver Sun)