Doctor in PM’s video now on run from police
Five months ago, Dr. Saren Azer was lauding the Conservative government’s decision to extend Canada’s mission to battle Islamic extremists in Iraq. Featured prominently in one of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s promotional videos, he warned that millions were in danger from such terrorists.
Defence Minister Jason Kenney also took to Twitter to laud Azer as a man “doing tremendous work” with Canada’s Kurdish community helping Iraqi refugees.
But today, Azer is a man on the run, sought by the RCMP for the alleged abduction of his children. INTERPOL has published the photos and details about the Canadian children, listing them as missing.
Azer is believed to be heading to northern Iraq to take refuge in the Kurdish enclave there.
Police informed his ex-wife, Alison Azer, that they believed her former husband, an internist in Comox, had taken the four children, 11-year-old Sharvahn; Rojevahn, 9; Dersim, 7; and Meitan, 3.
“I am now living a nightmare,” Alison wrote in an update on a website trying to raise awareness about the abduction. “Every day that passes without word from my children makes me more fearful.”
Saren Azer, also known as Salahaddin Mahmudi Azer, is a Kurd who has lived in Canada since 1994.
He is a medical doctor who has done humanitarian work in the Kurdistan region of Iraq annually since 2007.
Azer was legally permitted to leave Canada with the children, but when he didn’t return as scheduled, the Supreme Court of British Columbia issued an Aug. 21 order requiring that the children be returned immediately to their mother, RCMP spokesman Cpl. Darren Lagan said in an email Friday.
The RCMP has since issued an arrest warrant for Azer on abduction charges.
Alison and her husband separated more than three years ago and the relationship has been acrimonious, she said on a website about the abduction.
The children were last heard from in Cologne, Germany on Aug. 13.