The Canadian government faces potentially embarrassing questions in Parliament this week on why a convicted Palestinian terrorist, whose background allegedly was known to the authorities, managed to enter Canada on an immigrant visa a year ago and was given permanent resident status.
According to a report Monday in the Toronto Globe and Mail. Mahmoud Muhammad Issa Muhammad, 46, received the visa from the Canadian Consulate in Madrid in January 1987 and now lives with his wife and three children in Brantford, Ontario.
Issa Muhammad was convicted in Greece for the 1968 bombing of an Israeli airliner at Athens airport, in which one man was killed. In 1970, a Greek court sentenced him to 17 years and five months in prison for manslaughter, arson, illegal possession of firearms and explosives, and obstructing air navigation.
But he was released a year later in a hostage exchange and deported to Lebanon. The Globe and Mail said it has documents which show that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service’s screening system failed to identify Issa Muhammad as a member of the terrorist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine when he applied for his visa in Madrid.
By the time his identity was confirmed, he was aboard a plane bound for Canada. Although immigration officials in Canada were alerted by the Canadian Embassy in Madrid to intercept him when he landed in Toronto, Issa Muhammad managed to slip through, the Globe and Mail said.
According to the documents the newspaper says it has in its possession, government officials fear that if Issa Muhammad is deported to an “unfriendly country,” particularly Israel, “Palestinian terrorists may be tempted to take Canadian hostages abroad.”
If he is deported to an Arab country, the Israelis might try to seize or assassinate him, the documents say.
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