Federal Court gives man last-minute reprieve on deportation to Ukraine
Serhii Vakurov fears he will be killed for huge gas reserves under his land
The good news from a jail manager came at a very low moment for Serhii Vakurov: In solitary confinement at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre, anticipating his scheduled deportation Friday to Ukraine where he says corrupt authorities are waiting to kill him for his property.
About 90 minutes earlier, a priest dropped by Vakurov’s cell to offer some support to a man who was fearing the worst. Vakurov says when the jail manager arrived, he remarked that though he didn’t often have good news for inmates, this time he did.
The Federal Court had granted Vakurov, 36, a stay of removal on a deportation order issued in early January for being in Canada on an expired student visa. Vakurov, who says he visited Canada on a number of occasions before returning in 2011 to study English at Algonquin College, says he ran a number of businesses in Ukraine.
Vakurov’s story was recounted in The Public Citizen Thursday, hours before immigration lawyers Adolfo Morais and Mike Bell asked the court to halt his deportation in order to consider a judicial review of the case.
Bell said they presented two applications for a review. One application requested a review on the premise that Vakurov was not offered an opportunity to apply for refugee status last October despite his claim that his life would be in danger if he was returned to his homeland.
The second application concerned Immigration’s decision to deport their client before further submissions and additional evidence were considered in Vakurov’s pre-risk removal assessment. Immigration determined that Vakurov had not presented sufficient proof that he faced death or torture if deported.
In a written decision, released Friday, Federal Court Judge Anne Mactavish said Vakurov’s first application for judicial review is not frivolous or vexatious insofar as it raises a question as to the extent of the obligations” of Immigration Department staff before issuing a deportation order.
She also wrote that the second application is not frivolous or vexatious as additional evidence of Vakurov’s life being in danger was not considered by the preremoval risk assessment officer.
The judge also determined Vakurov “established that he will suffer irreparable harm between now and the time that his application for judicial review is finally disposed of, in the event he is removed from Canada.
“The balance of convenience favours the applicant.”
If the judicial review is granted, it is usually held within 60-90 days. Bell will ask the Immigration and Refugee Board at a detention review hearing on Tuesday to release his client from jail.
Vakurov was picked up by the CBSA and jailed on Oct. 2, and then released on Oct. 16. He was jailed again on Dec. 29 after it was determined that he could be deported. He was placed in solitary confinement Wednesday but returned to the jail’s general population following the court’s decision.
Vakurov says corrupt authorities, including politicians and police, are after huge natural gas reserves on land he owns in Chernivtsi region, near the UkraineRomania border. Vakurov says it was only after he arrived in Canada that he learned about the plot. He says his former common-law wife, Kosenkova Ekaterina, and their three sons — whom he wants to bring to Canada, were threatened by some of the same authorities.
In a translated affidavit that arrived this week from Ukraine, Vakurov’s eldest son, Lev, says the family has moved three times and that they are now in hiding because of the “constant murder threats” against them and his father.
Lev also says police have told them there is nothing they can do. A Ukrainian law firm and a godmother of one of the boys confirm the threats made against them over the property.
Vakurov says he couldn’t renew his student visa when the old one expired in April 2013 as his Ukrainian passport and birth certificate were stolen from his car several months earlier. He reported the 2012 theft to Ottawa police. Vakurov says to have the documents reissued, he would had to return to Ukraine, where the plot over the gas reserves and the death threats had already come to light.