Man facing deportation tries to set himself on fire
Claims he worked as undercover operative for spy agency
An Arab-Israeli man facing deportation doused himself with gasoline over the weekend outside the Halifax office of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the spy agency that the man claims he worked for as an undercover operative.
The man’s immigration lawyer, Lee Cohen, said police arrived before the man could set himself ablaze.
“He tried to kill himself because he wanted to die in Canada and do so on his terms and not at the hands of others who, he was quite sure, would torture him before killing him,” Cohen said.
The man, who has asked not to be identified for fear of his safety, told the National Post last week that he feared being outed as a spy and being killed if sent back to the Middle East. The Post has not been able to verify his claims of working for CSIS.
On Monday, Cohen said he was trying to get the federal government to approve a deferral of the man’s removal order on humanitarian grounds. He said his client was being detained by the Canada Border Services Agency.
A CBSA spokeswoman said Monday she could not comment on specific cases for privacy reasons. Judith Gadbois-St-Cyr said the agency proceeds with removal only when legal avenues are exhausted and that if there are medical concerns, officials will consult with doctors to determine a person’s fitness for travel.
The man had told the Post he arrived in Canada in 2008 and filed a refugee claim in Toronto. Because he was bouncing from home to home, he said, he did not receive notice of a hearing for his claim and the claim was abandoned.
A few years later, after moving to Halifax, the man applied for a pre-removal risk assessment, but the application was rejected.
That’s when he approached CSIS and told them he had valuable information to share about people in Canada with ties to Hezbollah, he said. The man said they reached an agreement whereby he would help the agency with its intelligence-gathering efforts and, in return, the agency would support his bid for permanent resident status.
The man said that over the next four years he helped collect information on suspected money-laundering networks and people suspected of having ties to various terrorist groups. He said he created three Twitter accounts in which he pretended to be an ISIL sympathizer.
But in 2016, the man said, the agency abruptly cut off its relationship with him. Then this summer, he got notice that the government was moving to deport him.
Cohen said he didn’t see the reason for the urgency to remove his client, especially since the man had a second pre-removal risk assessment application that he submitted in 2017 that was still being adjudicated.
On Sunday morning, he was supposed to meet CBSA officers at the airport for his removal but did not show up.
Cohen said he notified CBSA of his client’s intent to harm himself and repeatedly asked for a deferral of the removal order. He said CBSA officers agreed to stand down and meet with his client Monday morning to discuss things further.
Cohen said he then met his client in the west end of the city early Sunday afternoon.
“I urged him not to take any life-threatening measures, that I had not lost hope that we could get his removal deferred,” Cohen wrote in an email. “He said that we had exhausted all ideas, that he had been preparing for his end for a few days, that he had
HE TRIED TO KILL HIMSELF BECAUSE HE WANTED TO DIE IN CANADA AND DO SO ON HIS TERMS AND NOT AT THE HANDS OF OTHERS.
no confidence in CBSA.”
The man took the ball cap Cohen was wearing. “It had a Canadian logo on it. He put it on his head. He wanted to be wearing that when he died,” Cohen said.
He then drove off.
The Chronicle Herald newspaper reported that police descended on a downtown Halifax office building just before 3 p.m. Sunday and took the man into custody.
“Police arrived before he could set himself on fire,” Cohen said. “He looked terrible."
Cohen said police transferred his client to the hospital for assessment and determined he was mentally sound. He was then taken into CBSA detention
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