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The Canadian Federal Court of Appeal on Wednesday, January 19, handed down a precedent-setting ruling, upholding Canada's right to protect itself from international terrorists and paving the way for the deportation to Sri Lanka of Suresh Manickawasagam, a well-known LTTE activist, the Sri Lanka's High Commission in Ottawa said in a press release on Saturday, the Daily News said. The LTTE activist was a fund-raiser in Canada for the World Tamil Movement and the Federation of Associations of Canadian Tamils, which are listed by the United States as "known front organisations" for the LTTE, revealed the Saturday Island. According to a Reuter report from Ottawa the lawyers have said on Thursday that they world appeal to the Supreme Court against a Canadian federal court decision that the government may send refugees it suspects of terrorism back home even if they might face torture in their homeland. However, the Federal Court of Appeal in Ottawa, often perceived abroad as being soft on terrorism, handed down related decisions on Tuesday denying requests by two refugee claimants, Manickawasagam Suresh of Sri Lanka and Mansour Ahani of Iran, not to be sent home for fear of torture. The Saturday Daily Mirror said that Barbara Jackma, the lawyer for both Suresh and Ahani told Reuters on Thursday that she would appeal the decision to the Supreme Court, Guaranteeing her clients would stay in Canada for at least another couple of years. "I don't think our government should be sending people to face torture" she has stated. Meanwhile, Sri Lanka's ambassador to Canada Ananda Goonesekara told Reuters that his government had given Ottawa assurances that Suresh would be protected. However Justice Joseph Robertson on Tuesday had categorically rejected the argument that terrorism is a vague political concept and defined it as the killing of innocent civilians. He also found that the LTTE fit this definition, noting that the group engages in crimes against humanity, including the indiscriminate killing of civilians, said the Daily News. He had also added "To the extent that Canada is not already a haven for terrorists, the government has a legitimate right to ensure that it does not become such". Further Daily News reports that in Canada the WTM, FACT and other front organizations of the LTTE raise money for the LTTE and its brutal campaign in Sri Lanka through various methods, including fraud and extortion. It was also believed that at one point an estimated $8.4 million per year was flowing from Canada to fund the LTTE's war chest. The decision had come at a time when Canada was expected to soon become a signatory to the US sponsored International Convention on the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism. Already countries like Sri Lanka, USA, Britain, France, Finland, Malta and The Netherlands have signed the treaty.
The security service has alleged that Suresh
Manickawasagam was a high ranking member of the Liberation Tigers, who are
engaged in a life-and-death-struggle with Sri Lankan government for a
separate Tamil homeland in the north of the island, Saturday Island
revealed.
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