Convicted terrorists should be booted out of Canada

A convicted terrorist ordered out of Canada two decades ago is still living with his family in their modest semi-detached bungalow in northeast Brantford, Ontario. Lebanese-born Mahmoud Mohammad Issa Mohammad made international headlines in 1968 when he and an accomplice attacked an Israeli commercial airliner at Athens airport.

One passenger was killed, a stewardess was injured and the terrorists destroyed the plane in a failed escape bid.

Nineteen years later, this terrorist entered Canada after lying about his terrorist past. Immigration Canada finally discovered that they erred in letting him enter Canada and because he lied about his terrorist past. Since then, he has had appeal after appeal which so far has effectively delayed his expulsion.

When two Hamilton Spectator reporters showed up at his door unannounced, he complained that the news media falsely portrayed him as a terrorist. "I was a freedom fighter – not a terrorist. I was fighting Israel, the enemy of my people. Mohammad, was born in Palestine on July 20, 1943 so I suppose his people are Palestinians. Mohammad stressed he has lived peacefully in Canada for the past 21 years. "My record in Canada is clean, clear and good."

I am not taking issue about his conduct for the past 21 years he’s been in Canada. What I am taking issue is the fact that in the past 21 years, no real effort by the government has been taken to get this terrorist out of our country. I don’t have any qualms about calling him a terrorist for the following reason.

Under orders of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the then 25-year-old guerrilla fighter and another man hurled grenades and sprayed the plane with machine-gun fire. An Israeli passenger was killed after being hit by a piece of shrapnel and one stewardess was injured while the Israeli jetliner was about to take off from Athens with 50 passengers and crew aboard on December 26, 1968. The aircraft was destroyed in the attack.

In 1970, a Greek court convicted Mohammad of manslaughter and six other charges and sentenced him to 17 years in jail. Unfortunately Mohammad was freed a few months later after another Palestinian terrorist group hijacked a Greek jetliner and threatened to kill more than 50 passengers unless the Greek government released Mohammad and half a dozen other political prisoners.

Somehow he and his wife were living in Spain with their children before being admitted to Canada as refugees. Later in his application for residency, Mohammad denied being convicted of any crime. He also claimed no involvement in any political organization since he was 18 years old. As a result of these lies and omissions, he was accepted into Canada as a landed resident.

In December, 1988, Mohammad was brought before an immigration adjudicator, who heard evidence that Mohammad was convicted by a Greek court of three charges: (a) manslaughter by negligence, (b) disturbing the safety of air traffic, and (c) using a weapon during the perpetration of an act of manslaughter. The immigration adjudicator found (a) that Mohammad was properly described as an inadmissible person under paragraph 27(1)(a) of the Immigration Act, and (b) that Mohammad was a permanent resident granted landing by reason of misrepresentation of material facts. At the inquiry, Mohammad made a claim for Convention refugee status, which, the Court was informed, had failed.

But through seemingly inexhaustible avenues of appeal and due process of law – including applying for refugee status – he has staved off deportation.

Why would this convicted terrorist claim refugee status? The answer is obvious. Softheaded Immigration officials accept anyone into Canada who says the magic words, “I am claiming refugee status.” Once those words are uttered, the gates to Canada open faster that when Ali Baba said, “Open Sesame” and the door in the rock opened to the hideout of the forty thieves.

The adjudicator found that Mr. Mohammad came within paragraph 27(1)(a) as a member of an inadmissible class described in paragraph 19(1)(c). The adjudicator also found that Mr. Mohammad was a person who fell within paragraph 27(1)(e), that is, a permanent resident granted landing by reason of misrepresentation of material facts. However, during the inquiry, Mr. Mohammad applied for Convention refugee status. When the inquiry concluded on December 15, 1988, the adjudicator held that Mr. Mohammad was removable from Canada, subject to the determination as to his refugee claim. The Refugee Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board held a hearing in 1996, and denied his claim to be accepted into Canada as a refugee.

This terrorist has stated that he will not give up the fight. He said, when interviewed, “I'll fight to the last moment. I am not going to give up." This reminds me of the words of that great American naval hero who, when faced with British warships, said, “I have not yet begun to fight.”

Both the terrorist and his wife have yet to be called to take the oath of citizenship. Section 5 of the Citizenship Act is the general provision relating to the granting of citizenship by the Minister. In essence, it provides that the Minister shall grant citizenship to any person who makes an application and meets specified criteria, including the requirement that the applicant has been lawfully admitted to Canada. Sections 5 and 12 of the Act do not require the Minister to confer citizenship automatically in every situation on every person who is recommended for citizenship by a citizenship judge. The wife of the convicted terrorist has not demonstrated that she has clean hands either since misrepresentation of her husband's past conviction is sufficient to warrant her ouster from Canada. I would be remiss however if I didn’t add that she claimed that she didn’t speak or read English when she came to Canada and it was her husband who prepared the forms. In any case, she had to know something of her husband’s past.

He can make a claim to remain in Canada on humanitarian and compassionate grounds. Mohammad says he's too sick to be deported to Lebanon. His diabetes, heart failure and hepatitis would be exacerbated if he were to be sent back, Mr. Mohammad's lawyer Barbara Jackman has argued. I suppose sending him to Lebanon could put his health at risk because of the instability of that nation at present but we could send him to Greece to serve out the rest of his 17-year sentence. That nation is stable and it has excellent medical facilities.

This is a way to get this creep out of Canada. Ask the Greeks to make a request to extradite this terrorist back to Athens to finish serving his sentence. Canada will gladly adhere to their request.

It is conceivable however that if he is returned to Athens to serve out the rest of his sentence, terrorists will again threaten the Greek authorities to release this terrorist and the Greek authorities will again put him on a plane like they did the last time. However, if that happens, and he tried to get back into Canada, he might not get in a second time.

In 2001, the federal Liberals made the definition of persecution open-ended. So now, some asylum-seekers claim they would be “persecuted” if sent back to so-called repressive states like Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Germany and the U.S. So when it comes to immigration, Canada has become the asylum theatre of the absurd. The United Kingdom and Germany deport people like Mohammad back to countries with questionable human rights records. They can do that because they sign agreements for regular access to the deported individuals to ensure they haven’t been tortured.

Canada must not be regarded as a safe haven for terrorists. I sincerely hope that any further adjudication of this case be done expeditiously as an inordinate amount of time has already elapsed.

Let’s give this creep the bum’s rush out of our country so that any others of his ilk will realize that Canada does not accept terrorists and terrorist sympathizers access to our country.