On January 10, a Canadian Federal Court judge upheld the deportation order of Mr. Suresh Manickavasagam, an alleged LTTE fundraiser who has been resident in Canada for 26 years.
Mr. Manickavasagam's case has wound its way through Canadian Courts for over 2 decades since he was first arrested in 1995 for allegedly posing a security risk. The Canadian authorities alleged that Mr. Manickavasagam, as co-ordinator of the now banned World Tamil Movement in Toronto, was fundraising for the LTTE and tried to deport him on a 'security certificate'.
Mr. Manickavasagam fought his case up to the Supreme Court of Canada, which in 2002, overturned his deportation order on the grounds that he would be at risk of torture if returned to Sri Lanka, and that this risk had to be balanced against the alleged security threat he posed.
For 13 years, Mr. Manickavasagam then proceeded to build a life in Canada.
But last September, the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) (the tribunal of first instance for immigration matters in Canada) issued a ruling stating they had found Mr. Manickavasagam "criminally inadmissible" to Canada under a law that deems refugees inadmissible if they are found to belong to a terrorist group or be otherwise engaged in terrorism activities, either in their homeland or in Canada.
In his ruling last week, Federal Court Judge Richard Mosley upheld the September 2015 IRB decision ordering Mr. Manickavasagam's deportation order.
Neither the IRB Decision from September nor the Federal Court Decision last week have been published on the courts' websites so it is unclear what change in circumstances prompted the renewed attempt to deport Mr. Manickavasagam.
