Deporting terrorist cost more than $117,000
Convicted of grenade attack, in Ontario since 1987
It cost the federal government more than $117,000 to charter the Learjet and medical team that rid Canada of a man many consider the poster boy for everything that has gone wrong with the immigration system.
After losing his bid for a stay of removal on medical grounds — his last bargaining chip after 26 years of legal wrangling — Mahmoud Mohammad Issa Mohammad was deported to Lebanon in May.
The convicted Palestinian terrorist linked to a deadly 1968 attack on an Israeli passenger jet had been living in Ontario since 1987.
During a news conference to trumpet his removal, then-immigration minister Jason Kenney said it likely cost Canadian taxpayers millions in court costs to fight his attempts to stay over a quarter-century.
The government was unable at the time to say how much more his deportation cost taxpayers but documents released to Postmedia News through access-to-information legislation put the price tag of the Latitude AeroMedical Works air ambulance with a registered nurse and registered respiratory therapist at $117,313.
There were also additional flight, accommodation, meal and incidental costs for two Canada Border Services Agency escorts and a third unidentified escort as well as hundreds of dollars worth of cancellation fees after his initial deportation was abruptly halted after he became ill and landed in hospital.
The government maintains the medevac was money well spent.
“After a 26-year stay in Canada, we are pleased to have successfully deported this convicted terrorist killer who made a mockery of our legal system,” said Jean-Christophe de Le Rue, a spokesman for Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney.
“Mahmoud Mohammad Issa Mohammad represents just how broken Canada’s immigration and refugee systems had become under previous governments.”
Mohammad came to Canada in 1987 as a skilled worker and settled with his wife, Fadia Khalil, and three children in Brantford, Ont.
When authorities discovered he had lied about his name, criminal history and involvement with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, listed as a terrorist entity in 2003, the federal government tried to quietly remove him to Tunis but the plan failed and he was returned to Canada.
It was then that he applied for refugee status. His claim was first rejected in 1995 and he was able to appeal or otherwise delay his case through a variety of mechanisms ever since.
Mohammad’s Toronto lawyer, Barbara Jackman, said the cost of his deportation is certainly significant but while she might have been surprised to hear the government would go to such lengths a decade ago, she’s not terribly surprised anymore.
“I think that the government, that Jason Kenney in particular, has been the person spearheading the drive behind getting rid of some people at all costs, regardless of the cost and without regard to the personal circumstances of the individual,” she said.
She described her client as an older man, 70 when deported, with serious health problems, no support system in Lebanon and limited access to medical care upon arrival.