Outspoken Montreal imam ordered detained until deportation
Last Updated: Wednesday, October 17, 2007 | 10:00 PM ET
CBC News
cbc.ca
A controversial Muslim cleric will remain in custody until his deportation next week after the Immigration and Refugee Board declared him a flight risk.
Imam Said Jaziri was ordered detained Wednesday following a nearly four-hour hearing in Montreal. He will be deported to his native Tunisia next Monday.
Said Jaziri is a Muslim cleric at the Al-Qods mosque in Montreal
(CBC) His Quebecois wife, Nancy-Ann Adams, collapsed after hearing her husband would remain behind bars until he's deported. Adams, who is seven months pregnant, called the decision shameful and had to be helped from the courtroom.
One of his lawyers said the impending deportation seems inevitable. Nawal Benrouayene said Jaziri's legal battle is likely over.
"Mr. Jaziri has no confidence left [in the system]. He's discouraged and doesn't want to continue the process," Benrouayene said.
Jaziri told comissioner Dianne Tordoff that he was open to returning to Tunisia but hoped to spend his final days with his pregnant wife and tying up his affairs.
The cleric, who heads the Al-Qods mosque in Montreal, was ordered deported last year when officials revoked his refugee status, originally obtained in 1998.
The Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada is claiming the Tunisian-born cleric presented false information to get into Canada, and lied about having a criminal record in France, where he served jail time.
He says he will be tortured or killed in Tunisia because of his political beliefs and has been trying to stall his deportation order for more than a year. Jaziri was arrested by the Canada Border Services Agency under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act on Monday.
Tunisian Ambassador Abdessalem Hetira said Jaziri will not be in any danger in Tunisia because his country respects human rights.
Adams says she will continue to fight for her husband to stay in Canada.
Earlier, she held a vigil outside the federal building where the hearing was located, appearing in front of reporters clutching an ultrasound image of the couple's unborn son.
"I hope he (Jaziri) gets to see him," Adams said of their unborn boy, due in December.
On Tuesday, Jaziri was hospitalized after going on a hunger strike following his arrest and that delayed Wednesday's hearing by several hours.
Jaziri has drawn attention to himself in the past for what his critics call extreme views on Islam.
He has defended sharia law on CBC’s French language radio service, and recently proposed the government fund a $20-million mosque in Montreal.
Jaziri also spearheaded protests in the city in 2006 over the publication of Muhammad cartoons in a Danish newspaper. |
