Judge jails man for 18 months for passport fraud

Already faces death sentence in Kuwait

A Canadian citizen facing death in Kuwait after being convicted in absentia of murdering his wife received a much less severe penalty in Ottawa on Friday for passport fraud.

Faisal Farhan was sentenced to 18 months in jail after using fraudulent driver’s licences and birth certificates, disguises and photos of unidentified children to obtain seven passports he planned to use to abduct his son and daughter from the Middle Eastern country. He was also placed on probation for a year.

Ontario Court Justice Heather Perkins-McVey said she couldn’t consider the Kuwaiti court’s murder verdict that was partially based on a secret investigation and carried out without telling Farhan he was on trial.

She also didn’t consider surveillance camera evidence that showed Farhan may have tried to carry out his abduction plan when he allegedly travelled to Kuwait in December 2010. Canada does not have an extradition treaty with Kuwait.

Instead, Perkins-McVey focused on the international harm to the reputation of Canada’s passport and the need to send a message to others who might consider hatching such a sophisticated plan before sentencing Farhan.

Perkins-McVey said the 46-year-old’s fraudulent driver’s licenses, health cards and birth certificates were like a “stack of Russian dolls.”

“One fraudulent document was used to obtain the next,” said Perkins-McVey.

Farhan also lied to an Ottawa judge to gain sole custody of the children, even though a Kuwaiti court had already awarded their mother custody. The children, in Kuwait, were not supposed to travel.

Farhan told a probation officer that he committed the passport fraud during a time when he longed for the children. He now says he is sorry for what he called the “biggest mistake” of his life.

“The accused committed these offences not for monetary gain or for terrorism but because he was consumed with love for his children and he was concerned for their safety,” said Perkins- She found it particularly aggravating Farhan continued to lie to a Superior Court judge even after pleading guilty to the passport fraud, insisting that the children once lived with him when their aunt asked to have the Ontario custody order overturned.

Farhan, who suffers from Bell’s palsy and a suppressed immune system, had asked for a conditional sentence he could serve in the community, but Perkins-McVey concluded that wasn’t an appropriate punishment for the electrical and civil engineering graduate.