By Michael Platt, QMI Agency
CALGARY – His rights, as a convicted drug trafficker ordered deported to Somalia, were deemed more important than the guaranteed safety of Canadian citizens.
And so, despite warnings that Bashir Gaashaan was a flight risk who posed a danger to the public, Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board let him go — a freedom that lasted exactly one year and eight months.
On June 15, 2011, RCMP in Alberta announced they had arrested Gaashaan, charging him with first-degree murder, unlawful confinement, offering an indignity to human remains, sexual assault and trafficking in cocaine.
The body of Jenna Cartwright, 21, a young mom from Red Deer, Alta., had been discovered in a ditch near Olds, Alta. — and police believe the man ordered out of Canada two years earlier killed her.
“I’m so angry, even more angry than before — the whole thing is sickening,” says Marissa Cartwright, Jenna’s twin sister.
For the first time, she’s having a look at documents obtained by QMI Agency detailing Gaashaan’s release by the Immigration and Refugee Board.
“I am still in such shock about this,” says Cartwright, who started an online petition demanding stricter deportation rules.
“I cannot believe this has happened, I honestly feel betrayed by our government — we should be able to rely on our government and know they are keeping us safe.”
But public safety, apparently, doesn’t trump the comfort of a convicted drug dealer — even one already deemed unfit for Canada.
Given Gaashaan’s upcoming February 2014 trial for murder, the hearing in which the deportee was released from custody now seems infuriatingly naive — especially when the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) wanted the Somali-born drug pusher to stay behind bars until sent home.
Source: CNews
