TWO rusty ships off of B.C.; 568 Tamil migrants on board; SIX years of legal battles; EIGHT charged with human smuggling; ONE conviction
OCEAN LADY BROUGHT 76 ASYLUM SEEKERS TO B.C. IN A BOAT OF QUESTIONABLE SEAWORTHINESS
The first vessel — undersized and not built for ocean voyages — laboured toward the B.C. coast in October 2009 with 76 Tamil asylum-seekers onboard.
Then in August 2010, a larger ship — but with the same questionable seaworthiness — was intercepted off the coast with 492 Tamil migrants.
The Ocean Lady and Sun Sea passengers all claimed they were fleeing the ravages of civil war in Sri Lanka.
But the Conservative government at the time took an aggressive stance — detaining and building cases against many of the asylum-seekers — as part of a campaign to deter future “irregular arrivals.”
A handful of passengers from each ship were also charged with being part of criminal humansmuggling operations.
However, on Thursday, four accused from the Ocean Lady were found not guilty, bringing to seven the total number of acquittals. There has been only one conviction.
“The government has spent years and huge amounts of money to fight the passengers of the Ocean Lady and the Sun Sea — in the courts, in the refugee hearing processes, detaining them as long as they could. All for what?” said Janet Dench, executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees.
“The charges of criminality and security risks have been shown to be without foundation. … At least we can take pride in the fact that Canadian institutions and courts continue to treat people fairly.”
In the Ocean Lady case, the Crown had tried to argue that Francis Anthonimuthu Appulonappa, Hamalraj Handasamy, Jeyachandran Kanagarajah and Vignarajah Thevarajah played significant roles during the voyage — captain, engine room worker, chief engineer and transportation provider — and thus helped to organize, aid or abet a smuggling enterprise.
But in a decision released Thursday, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Arne Silverman said while there was evidence of organized criminal activity, the Crown had failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the activities of the four men were connected to it or helped to further it.