After a brief immigration hearing, Canadian officials have ordered the deportation of a former bodyguard of Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat.
But lawyers for Walid Khalil Baroud said they would appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court of Canada.
Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Canadian immigration officials arrested the 45-year-old Palestinian one year ago, when he was picked up at his home in Mississauga, Ontario, just west of Toronto.
Immigration spokesman Kevin Sack said at the time that Baroud posed a national security threat. No further details were released.
Baroud, an official of AI Fatah, the mainstream PLO group, arrived at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport from Greece in May 1991 with his wife and three children. Two additional children have been born since the family arrived in Canada. The family, traveling on forged Egyptian passports and claiming to be Israelis, filed for refugee status.
But Canada issued a nationwide warrant after Baroud skipped two immigration hearings.
Baroud has acknowledged his involvement with the PLO, but denied ever planning or taking part in terrorist attacks.
He was held for more than a month in 1991, but was later released on the condition that he regularly check in with immigration officials.
He lived for the next three years in suburban Mississauga.
But on June 6, 1994, he was returned to jail after Canadian intelligence officials said they thought that Baroud had engaged in terrorism.
Baroud has reportedly been in charge of coordinating terrorist acts in Libya, Syria, Lebanon and Greece, where he was stationed for eight years.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
