Abdihakim Mohamed, a 25-year-old Canadian who has autism, has been stuck in Kenya since a 2006 attempt to renew his passport was halted by Canadian officials who claimed his ears looked different in a new passport photo, said his Ottawa-based lawyer Jean Lash.
Source:Canwest News Service
- Mohamed's mother, Anab Issa, has attempted to prove her son's identity through a series of affidavits, but the process has been stalled because Mohamed, who was born in Somalia, doesn't have a birth certificate or other documents that the Canadian government requested he produce to prove his identity.
- The case draws a parallel to that of Suaad Hagi Mohamud, a 31-year-old Canadian citizen who returned to Canada Saturday. The Somali-born Canadian was trapped in Kenya for three months and ended up in jail for a week after Canadian officials there said her lips did not match her four-year-old passport photo.
- Critics said both cases were hampered by the Canadian High Commission in Nairobi, Kenya.
- Mohamed Dalmar, a manager at the Catholic Immigration Centre of Ottawa, believes officials there are wary of the large number of Somali refugees who have fled conflict in their own country and may be looking for a way into Canada.
- "Along the years, you get a mentality to be extra careful of these people," Dalmar said. "The high commission (is) more watchful and assumes that these people want to come to Canada by fraudulent means."
- Dalmar, a Somali-Canadian, has worked with Issa for the past three years as she has attempted to bring her son back to Canada.
- According to Lash, in 2004 Mohamed went back to Somalia with his mother after a doctor recommended that spending time with family members in his home country might help the young man's autism.
- Issa left her son with his grandmother and aunt in Somalia and went back to Canada, taking her son's passport with her for safekeeping.
- At Pearson International Airport in Toronto, Issa was stopped and her son's passport confiscated.
- It is unclear why the passport was taken. The passport then expired and when Issa applied for a new one in 2006, Kenyan officials denied that request. In 2008, Passport Canada told her she was under investigation for applying for a passport for an impostor. It was then that Issa, an Ottawa-resident with limited means, first contacted a lawyer.
- Ottawa MP and NDP Foreign Affairs critic Paul Dewar said the two cases of Canadian citizens detained in Kenya are an indication that Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon is not able to handle all of the files he is responsible for.
- "We have secretaries of state bumping into each other in Harper's cabinet yet no one seems to be able to help Canadian citizens abroad when they need help," Dewar said. "This is obviously a systemic problem and a political problem at the same time. Clearly the Minister of Foreign Affairs can't do the job."
- Dewar said the prime minister should appoint an ombudsman for consular affairs who could deal directly with consular affairs complaints to ensure Canadian citizens abroad receive fair treatment.
- Prime Minister Stephen Harper has called on Cannon and Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan, who oversees the Canada Border Services Agency, to provide a full accounting in Mohamud's case.
- At this point, there are no further details about the scope of the accounting process, or when any results might be released.
- Lash said just three weeks ago, she got some good news that Mohamed would be granted a passport after one final affidavit. She hopes he will be back in the country within weeks.
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