Canada to throw out billionaire kin of Tunisia dictator

TORONTO - With a billionaire brother-in-law of the ousted Tunisian dictator Zine el Abidine Ben Ali fleeing with his family to Montreal last week, Canada Friday said it was taking steps to remove him from the country.

Billionaire businessman Belhassen Trabelsi, who has been accused of amassing wealth by looting the Tunisian people, landed in Montreal after fleeing Tunisia in a private jet. The Tunisian authorities have sought his extradition and requested the Canadian government to hand him over to them, Mouldi Sakri, Tunisia’s ambassador to Canada, said.

Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon said his government was looking at ways to quickly comply with the request by the Tunisian authorities for extraditing the deposed dictator’s brother-in-law.

“He is not welcome. We are going to find - in the context, obviously, of current legislation - ways to assure, as quickly as possible, that we might comply with the demand from the Tunisia government,” said Cannon.

The minister said Canada was taking steps to freeze Trabelsi’s assets. Canadian immigration authorities have reportedly already revoked Trabelsi’s permanent residence status in Canada which he acquired in the 1990s.

But the dictator’s kin can appeal and prolong the process under Canada’s lax laws and thus stop his removal.

Once acquired, the Canadian permanent residence status cannot be easily revoked. It can take years of legal battle. Even if he loses the legal battle, he can still file for refugee status on the grounds that he would tortured if sent back to Tunisia.

This loophole in Canadian laws has been exploited by criminals, terrorists and fugitives to stay on indefinitely in Canada.

The overthrow of the Tunisian dictator has led to a similar mass movement in Egypt for the overthrow of the long-entrenched President Hosni Mubarak who has ruled the most populous Arab nation since the assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981.

(Gurmukh Singh can be contacted at gurmukh.s@ians.in)