A convicted war criminal was given another chance to convince Canadian officials that he did not enter the country illegally by concealing his Nazi past.
A Canadian immigration adjudicator ruled that Jacob Luitjens was entitled to a full deportation inquiry, despite the fact that he recently lost his case before a federal court.
Luitjens, 72, was convicted in absentia in the Netherlands in 1948 for being a member of the Landwacht, a police force established by the Nazis to round up Jews and resistance fighters.
Canadian immigration adjudicator Daphne Shaw Dyck ruled that she was not bound by Justice Frank Collier’s decision and rejected the Justice Department’s arguments that it would be ridiculous to “relitigate” the earlier ruling.
Collier ruled last October that Luitjens hid his Nazi past when he applied for Canadian citizenship in 1971. He was then stripped of his citizenship. In April, the Federal Court of Appeals in Ottawa upheld Collier’s decision and ruled that Luitjens could not appeal it.
According to the daily Toronto Globe and Mail, Shaw said she “could not rely on the essential findings of fact rendered by Justice Collier when he found Luitjens had lied about his past three times in applying to immigrate to Canada.
“The Immigration Act requires me to make a decision in this case based on credible evidence presented to me,” said Shaw. “Such is my statutory duty, and to do otherwise places the integrity of the immigration inquiry in jeopardy.”
Shaw added that “the minister of immigration, not Mr. Luitjens, has initiated this inquiry, and according to the immigration regulations, he must be given the opportunity to reply to evidence against him.”
As a result of Shaw’s ruling, Canadian officials have begun reintroducing evidence used in the prior federal court case.
Last fall, following the court’s ruling, Luitjens, a former University of British Columbia botany instructor, became the first Canadian to be stripped of his citizenship and face deportation because of war crimes.
In January, the Dutch government formally sought Luitjens’ extradition under a new treaty.
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