Federal court stays order releasing gangster gunman
Judge agrees man too serious a threat to stay with family pending deportation
Over the last three weeks, convicted gangster gunman Aram Ali has twice been ordered released from a Metro Vancouver immigration jail.
But the United Nations associate remains behind bars because the Federal Court of Canada has intervened three times to set aside Immigration and Refugee Board orders allowing Ali to stay with his family pending his deportation.
The latest twist in the Ali case came late Friday when Federal Court Chief Judge Paul Crampton sided with the Canada Border Services Agency and granted the stay of an IRB ruling permitting Ali’s release issued just the day before.
The 32-year-old native of Iraq came to Canada as a refugee in 2000. He never got citizenship.
He was convicted of shooting up a rival’s Range Rover outside Surrey’s T-Barz strip club in February 2009. The vehicle’s driver was struck, but the target of the shooting, Independent Soldier Tyler Willock, escaped injury.
Ali testified that he did the shooting for a friend, high-ranking UN gangster Barzan Tilli-Choli. At the time, Ali was on bail on a drug trafficking charge.
A B.C. Supreme Court judge called him a mercenary for hire and in December 2015 sentenced him to eight-and-a-half years, reduced to three-and-a-half after credit for his pretrial custody.
While serving his sentence, a deportation order was issued against him on the grounds of serious criminality. In March, an IRB member ruled that he was too dangerous to stay in Canada, saying “the circumstances of Mr. Ali’s most recent offence are chilling.”
So when he reached his statutory release date last month, Ali was handed over to the CBSA to await his removal from Canada.
That triggered a routine 48-hour detention review before IRB member Laura Ko on April 20 to determine if he could be let out on bail. Ko ordered his release on a $5,000 bond and several conditions.
The CBSA sought and was granted an emergency stay of Ko’s order later the same day at the Federal Court.
Judge Patrick Gleeson issued a second stay of the IRB ruling on April 27, but it was only valid until Ali’s subsequent detention review, which was held May 2 and 3.
On May 3, IRB member Michael McPhelan ordered Ali released a second time on more stringent conditions and two $5,000 bonds — one put up by his mom in Calgary and the second by a family friend.
Both testified for Ali at the Vancouver hearing, which lasted seven-and-a-half hours.
Despite winning the order for his release, Ali remained in custody as the CBSA returned to the Federal Court for a third time to try to get the decision set aside on the grounds Ali remains too serious a threat to be released.
The court heard arguments over the phone from Ali’s lawyer Veen Aldosky and Sarah Pearson, representing the federal government. Crampton granted the stay of McPhelan’s release order issued just the day before.
But Ali’s fate is not sealed yet. Aldosky has already said she is appealing the March IRB ruling declaring her client a danger to the public.
Meanwhile, the CBSA is trying to obtain travel documents for Ali, who left Iraq with his family as an infant and spent years living in a refugee camp in Syria.
Aldosky pointed out at both the IRB and Federal Court hearings that Ali and his family were co-operating in trying to obtain the appropriate Iraqi identification documents.