Canada is not a haven for retired terrorists, a government lawyer said at a deportation hearing for a former high-level member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. It is not in Canada’s national interest to “provide haven for retired terrorists or retired members of a terrorist organization,” Defense Department lawyer Jamie Todd said Tuesday in federal court, as he explained why the government is seeking to deport Issam al-Yamani.
Yamani, who once served as secretary to the head of the PFLP, has been in Canada for 22 years and been engaged in a long legal battle to stay in Canada. He said he was not “a sleeper cell or a retired terrorist” and that he was insulted by such allegations. “It is all a fabrication,” he said.
Yamani acknowledged his PFLP membership, but argued that it was a political association protected under Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Canada put the PFLP on its list of terrorist entities in 2003.
Reporting the stories that define our era. When history unfolds in real-time, the Jewish world turns to JTA. Your support ensures we can document the complexities of war and the resilience of Jewish communities with integrity.
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.
