Terror suspects to be deported to Pakistan
TORONTO — Two Pakistani men labelled security threats to Canada are to be deported within three weeks, federal officials disclosed at hearings held in Toronto Monday.
Jahanzeb Malik and Muhammad Aqeeq Ansari will be flown to Islamabad between Sept. 27 and Oct. 4. For security reasons, the Canada Border Services Agency did not reveal the exact date.
“The flight is booked,” Jessica Lourenco, a CBSA official, said at a detention hearing for Ansari, an alleged member of the terrorist group Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan.
“He’s leaving Canada within the next few weeks.”
Malik, who allegedly was caught in an undercover operation by the Mounties plotting a suicide bombing in downtown Toronto, was told he would also return to Pakistan between the same dates.
It was unclear whether the Pakistani government had approved the deportations. Canada delayed the deportations three months ago at Pakistan’s request, setting off a flurry of diplomacy. Pakistan is reluctant to take the pair back because of the risks they might pose.
At Monday’s hearing, Ansari told the Immigration & Refugee Board the Pakistani vice-consul in Toronto told him Friday her government had not agreed to his deportation.
But IRB member Karina Henrique told Ansari Canada did not need Pakistan’s permission to deport him. The delay was only a “common courtesy” extended to Pakistan at the diplomatic level.
“Your country has an obligation to take you back,” she said, ordering him to remain in custody until his removal date. He has been held at the Lindsay, Ont., prison since his arrest 11 months ago.
The IRB also ordered Malik to remain in detention on the grounds he is a flight risk and a danger to the public. He will likely be deported under CBSA escort on the same flights as Ansari.
The government said Monday Malik’s claim he would be at risk in Pakistan had been rejected.
Malik had expressed fears of returning to his home country after he was visited by two Federal Bureau of Investigation officers at the Lindsay prison.
Both Malik and Ansari are Pakistani citizens who lived in Toronto as landed immigrants until their arrests.
Ansari, who was detained days after last October’s terrorist attacks in Ottawa and St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que., was ordered deported for terrorism in May.
Malik, who had allegedly trained with al-Qaida in Libya, was arrested in March after trying to radicalize and recruit an undercover RCMP officer for a suicide bombing. The IRB ordered his deportation in June.