Sometimes Canada lets the real bad ones into our country

I can understand how difficult it is to thoroughly check out every refugee applicant that wants to enter Canada and become a Canadian citizen. We simply don’t have the manpower to conduct thorough investigations of the applicants. For this reason, we let the really bad ones slip into our country.

William Imona Russel (now aged 36) is one of the really bad ones. In April, 2003 this human monster arrived in Toronto from Nigeria using a false passport. That was Canada’s first mistake. Once it became apparent that he had a false passport, he should have immediately been sent back to Nigeria on the next available plane.

I don’t care that he was claiming that he was a refugee. He was not some homeless person fleeing the tyranny of his country. He had enough money to buy a forged passport and fly to Canada. That’s strange when you consider the fact that it was later learned that he hardly ever worked at a legitimate job in his life.

Canada has a very foolish policy about refugees. Once a person states that he is a refugee, Canada opens its doors and welcomes that person in and not only do we give him money to support himself, we also pay for his medical needs. In Australia, a refugee is put in a refugee camp and kept there until the country decides what to do with him.

On June 2004, he moved into Unit 77 on 246 John Garland Blvd. where he collected disability benefits since his medical test showed that he was proof positive for HIV. (which he didn’t get in Canada) He was getting these benefits and welfare even though his refugee claim has been denied. Upon learning that his refugee claim had been denied, he then asked to remain in Canada on humanitarian grounds; the grounds being that if he returned to Nigeria, he wouldn’t get treatment for his HIV.

Now one would think that if a country like Canada permits a refugee claimant the right to remain in Canada for several years while his appeal is being processed, that he would behave himself. Well, some of the failed applicants do behave themselves but not this monster. This monster was still free to roam our streets and that being as it was, he began to commit crimes.

In March 2005, he returned twice to his former Dixon Rd. apartment and sexually assaulted his former girlfriend. He was arrested and released on bail. What jerk JP or judge released him, I don’t know. In September of that same year, he was rearrested for breaching his bail conditions by communicating with the complainant and in November 2005, he pleaded guilty to breach of recognizance and sentenced to five days in jail.

In July 2006, he raped and stabbed a tenant (Yasmin Ashareh) to death who was living across the hall from him. he murdered her in his own bedroom. He was shortly thereafter arrested and charged with rape and first degree murder. A few days before her death in July 2006, the 20-year-old victim had rented the bedroom across the hall from him in a northwest Toronto townhouse.

Fighting to clear his name of murder, he hired and fired a series of lawyers, until Ontario legal aid officials said they wouldn’t fund any new lawyers due to his “total inability to work with defence counsel.” He filed copious complaints, appealed numerous court decisions; twice to the Supreme Court of Canada; and sought countless adjournments.

From the perspective of the Crown, police and the family of the woman he killed, the case has been a travesty and his legal maneuverings a blatant attempt to postpone judgment day.

Meanwhile he was also facing a trial for the two rapes of his former girlfriend. She ended up getting HIV from him. On January 2009, his trial began and on February 2009, Justice John McMahon convicted him of numerous charges including assault with a weapon and sexual assault. (rape) He was ordered to remain in custody. On one of those occasions in which he raped her, he held a power drill to her head. He also stole $8,000 from her by forging her signature on a number of her cheques.

On September 2009, he was convicted of assaulting a jail guard and sentenced to 90 days. The judge also sentenced him to nine years in prison for the assault with a weapon and the two sexual assaults on his former girlfriend.

In February 2010, Jury selection took place and Crown opened its case in the Ashareh homicide.

After the trial had been underway for some time, this monster realized that he wasn’t going to win his case so on April 27th 2010, William Imona-Russel while only in the witness box for one hour, confessed to stabbing Ashareh nine times with a pair of scissors. He claimed they had consensual sex and that he stabbed her because she insulted his manhood and he was drunk and didn’t know what he was doing. He said to the jury, “I snapped. I picked up the scissors and struck her. It happened really so fast. It was something I couldn’t believe myself.” That explanation is about as phony as his passport.

That confession ended four years of William Imona-Russel doggedly trying to prove he did not rape and stab Ashareh. At the same time he was also denying he had twice raped a former lover, once while holding a power drill to her head.

In July 2010, the jury convicted him of first-degree murder which alas, was part of an epic voyage through the immigration and judicial systems. I can only presume that between the moment he confessed in court that he committed the murder, there were some motions before the court before the jury was sent to the jury room to make its decision.

Compounding the bitterness for the family of Ashareh is the fact William Imona-Russel was not only in Canada when he shouldn’t have been, but at the time of her slaying he was out on bail for the rapes of his one-time lover. Further, when he was arrested in 2005 for the sexual assaults, he was described as having ‘no status’ in Canada because his refugee claim had been denied.

A spokeswoman for Canada Border Services said a deportation order is not an enforceable removal order. As well, immigration matters take a ‘back seat’ to criminal proceedings.

The sentence for first degree murder is automatically a minimum of twenty-five years in prison before the murderer can apply for parole. However, normally the court is duty bound to deduct from that sentence, any time he spent in prison waiting for his trial. What ever credit he was entitled to, it was applied to his nine-year sentence, not his 25-year sentence. He has stated that he intends to appeal his conviction but it is highly unlikely that Ontario legal aid will assist him so he will be on his own with respect to his appeal. The appeal will simply be another sham because his victim's blood was also found on various items in Imona-Russel's bedroom.

This means he must serve at least 25 years before he can apply for parole. Even if his parol application would be approved, he wouldn’t be released back into Canadian society again. When and if he he is entitled to parole, this monster will still be entitled to a ‘pre-removal risk assessment,’ the last-ditch crack at staying in Canada that is automatically offered to all failed refugee claimants but you can be sure that this particular monster will remain in custody during that period of his pre-removal assessment.

This monster will eventually be shipped back to Nigeria and the age while in his sixties. It is unlikely that Nigeria will give him a passport but the government of Canada can ask the United Nations to give him a refugee passport and then they can put this monster on a plane and fly him back to Nigeria.

If this stupid monster had behaved himself while in Canada, he would probably still be shipped back to Nigeria but at least he would be younger than being in his sixties. That age is a difficult age to begin one’s life again, especially in Nigeria when you have no money to begin with. But then, who cares? That’s his and Nigeria’s problem, not ours.

Our systems failed the victims and the Canadian taxpayer. So far, the Canadian taxpayers have paid out two-million dollars to feed, treat and try this monster and now we will be paying more to imprison him.

Many refugees come into Canada illegally on bogus papers, claiming refugee status. Many are denied that status because they are not really refugees. They simply want a better life for themselves. They then exhaust every avenue of appeal and in the interim, some then commit a murders and other violent crimes, stall the criminal trials on those matters by hiring and firing a slew of lawyers such that they can delay their convictions. They suck the public teat dry, and then shrug and say: “Aaaah, I have no papers but I am a refugee and I am asking to remain in Canada for humanitarian reasons.”

Something has to be done to make sure that refuges who wish to enter Canada are properly vetted before they even get to our borders. For example, I would like to see a law that states that they must make their applications from the nearest Canadian embassy or consulate in their country. If that is not possible, then they should go to the nearest country next to their own and approach the Canadian authorities there.

The concept and practice of letting refuges into our country with false passports or no passports at all must stop. If this practice continues, we will get monsters like the one I have written about and pay needless millions of dollars to feed and treat them. And despite the fact that they get that free ride, some will then rape and murder our citizens.