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Canadian suspects face deportation

Muslim leaders on Wednesday protested that 19 men -- 18 from Pakistan and one from India -- were detained and investigated due to racial profiling rather than evidence of terrorism.

``Enough is enough,'' said Amina Sherazee of the Muslim Canadian Congress, saying the men were victims of unlawful arrest and violations of their human rights.

The men were arrested Aug. 14 as possible national security threats in police raids under an investigation named Operation Thread. No criminal charges have been filed, though some of the detainees were illegal immigrants, according to immigration officials.

All faced hearings that started Wednesday on whether they should remain in custody while their possible deportations move through the immigration appeal process.

Four of the first five cases heard resulted in the suspects ordered to remain in detention by the Immigration and Refugee Board, a private agency that decides refugee and other immigration cases. The other was adjourned until yesterday, when the others also were also be heard.

According to evidence at one of the hearings, Muhammad Asif Aziz entered Canada in 1999 by hiding in a truck and provided authorities with a different name. Cathie Simmie of the Immigration and Refugee Board said police needed more time to investigate whether Aziz is a security threat.

Aziz took part in the hearing by videolink from a Toronto-area detention center where he and the other 18 men are being held.

While government lawyers raised the possibility of dormant terrorist cells during initial hearings last week, police acknowledge the investigation is just starting.

Reid Morden, former director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, said Wednesday that police and the spy agency needed only a suspicion of possible terrorist activity to detain the men under legislation adopted after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

``What seems to have happened here is that people possibly misrepresented themselves getting into the country,'' Morden said. ``Then you add to that the things they've been doing... you have to wonder.''

The 19 men were arrested Aug. 14 in pre-dawn raids in Toronto, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police spokeswoman said.

A document drafted by the intelligence arm of Canada's immigration department said most entered Canada as students from Pakistan's Punjabi province and used faked papers to keep their immigration status.

According to the document, one of the men was enrolled in flying lessons that took him over the Pickering nuclear power plant, about 30km east of Toronto.

Two others were turned away from the gates of the plant after claiming they wanted to take a shortcut through the site to walk on the beach in April 2002, it said.

Officials began investigating the men, who entered Canada between January, 1998, and Sept. 5, 2001, when one sought permanent residence in Canada while claiming to attend the Ottawa Business College. The college, which ceased operation in 2001, was fake and known to issue false enrollment documents, according to police.

Investigators learned the man had thousands of Canadian dollars in the bank but no job, and that most of the other men also had false papers from the college.

Some of the men lived in clusters in sparsely furnished apartments, moved frequently, and took their computer hard drives with them, according to investigators.
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