Canada had deported to Sudan a Palestinian man charged with being a former terrorist.
Wahid Baroud, 44, was admitted with his family in 1991 to Canada. He was arrested in June 1994, after immigration officials discovered that he was a former member of Force 17, a terrorist arm of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
He was considered such a security threat that Canada’s solicitor general and the minister of citizenship and immigration signed a rarely used security certificate against him.
Issuing the certificate “means that both ministers concur that the person is a security threat and should be removed,” said Roger White, a spokesperson for the department of citizenship and immigration.
“The department only moves rarely on the security certificate process,” he said. “It’s reserved for what we consider serious cases.”
When Baroud and his family arrived in 1991 from Greece, they were reportedly traveling on forged Egyptian passports. Claiming to be Israelis, they filed for refugee status.
But Canada issued a nationwide warrant after Baroud skipped two immigration hearings.
Baroud has reportedly acknowledged his involvement with the PLO, but denied ever planning or taking part in terrorist acts.
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 Mississauga, Ontario, just west of Toronto.
On June 6, 1994, he was returned to jail after Canadian intelligence officials said they thought that Baroud had engaged in terrorist acts.
Baroud claims he left the PLO when its leader, Yasser Arafat, demanded that he support Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War.
In an interview at the prison where was being held, Baroud said he wondered why he is still considered a terrorist when his former leader had won the Nobel Peace Prize.
Baroud was removed quickly last week from Canada.
He was not allowed to say goodbye to his wife and their five children, whom he had seen only once since being arrested.
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.
