Canada unable to get rid of crook
Authorities twice failed to deport apparently violent man who sparked weekend police chase in Similkameen Valley
A man wanted for attempted murder who sparked a wild police chase Saturday in Princeton has twice been ordered deported from Canada, the Penticton Herald has learned.
Afshin Maleki Ighani, 45, is due this morning in provincial court in Penticton to face eight charges from an incident last Wednesday in Oliver that left a man with a non-fatal gunshot wound. More charges are expected from events that followed in Princeton.
Ighani, who normally resides in Oliver, is no stranger to the Penticton courthouse, where he has appeared many times over the past 14 years on assorted drug, weapons and assault charges that prompted efforts to remove him from the country.
He was first ordered deported in 2002 after being convicted of possessing a restricted firearm. Ighani fought that order, however, and was granted a reprieve with strict conditions, including that he not commit any further criminal offences, according to a decision of the appeal division of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada.
That reprieve was revoked in July 2007, according to the same decision, after Ighani was convicted following trial in B.C. Supreme Court in Penticton and sentenced to 42 months in prison for eight offences in connection with a drug bust in Oliver.
He wasn’t deported that time, though, because he was facing the death penalty in his native Iran, according to a source with knowledge of the matter who is not permitted to speak publicly about it.
The federal department responsible for immigration didn’t return a request for comment Sunday.
On Saturday, Ighani was the subject of a Canadawide arrest warrant when he was spotted in a vehicle outside a restaurant in Princeton with another man and woman, the RCMP said in a press release.
Ighani then allegedly forced the other man out and drove off with the woman against her will, according to police.
The other man gave chase on a stolen motorcycle, which was later recovered in Okanagan Falls after it blew through a police roadblock in Keremeos.
Ighani, meanwhile, had gone east toward Manning Park, before turning around and heading back to Princeton.
Officers later corralled him in a trailer park and fired shots in an attempt to end the chase. Ighani managed to get away on foot but was nabbed a short distance away.
At the time of his arrest, Ighani was free on bail while awaiting trial this summer in Port Coquitlam on a three-year-old charge of assault causing bodily harm.
Last summer, he was acquitted following trial in Penticton on a charge of aggravated assault.
The judge in that case ruled Ighani acted in selfdefence when he punched another man, who suffered a fractured skull and brain hemorrhage when he fell and hit his head in an Oliver park as a result of the blow.