AFP - Saturday, September 22
VANCOUVER, Canada (AFP) - - Two Chinese brothers accused by China of embezzling tens of millions of dollars lost a legal battle Friday in their fight to avoid deportation from Canada.
The Federal Court of Canada refused to overturn orders to deport the brothers, Li Dongzhe and Li Donghu, from the country.
The siblings also lost their appeal of Canada's refusal to consider their refugee applications, which had been denied on the grounds that they were already under a removal order.
The Federal Court said their applications were "without foundation in fact and in law."
The brothers, who arrived the Pacific coast city of Vancouver in December 2004, were arrested on February 23.
China accuses the Li brothers, along with a third man, Chinese banker Gao Shan, of involvement in embezzling more than 100 million dollars from a Chinese bank.
The Federal Court's ruling allows Canadian official to begin a process to determine if siblings are at risk of facing the death penalty if they are sent back to China.
Canada does not have capital punishment, and therefore cannot legally deport people to countries where they could be killed or tortured.
The Pre-Removal Risk Assessment process can take more than six months, said Citizenship and Immigration Department spokeswoman Lois Reimer.
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/afp/20070922/tap-canada-china-crime-immigration-court-8d4ea94.html
Comment by me: It seems it is impossible under present conditions for Canada to return fugitives from Chinese justice to China to be made accountable for their crimes. This is due to Canadian judges' rulings questioning whether Chinese Government assurances that the returnees will not suffer unnatural death after return or be subject to treatment in prison that falls short of UN-mandated standards can be relied upon. Problem is that Canada does not want to become a haven for Chinese corrupt officials/mobsters and that their "getting away with it" by touching base in Canada and making a refugee claim is clearly morally wrong.
1 comment:
On a completely unrelated matter to the content and its complications, I notice that the article uses the East Asian convention of family name first, personal name last. This is something I've noticed with recent articles concerning China; I wonder if the same is true of Korean and Japanese names when they crop up.
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