Surrey: Meth Drug Convict Pleads To Stay in Canada

U.S. drug convict pleads to stayMan who aided meth production argues his actions are legal in CanadaKim Bolan, Vancouver SunPublished: Monday, April 14, 2008

METRO VANCOUVER - Surrey resident Ibrahim Mohammad Al Husein admits he provided a large quantity of ephedrine to a U.S. gang wanting to make crystal meth.

He pleaded guilty in a U.S. court and served a year in jail.

But now his lawyer is arguing in the Federal Court of Canada that the Jordanian national should not be excluded from remaining here because his U.S. crime is not illegal in Canada.

Blake Hobson argued before Judge Dolores Hansen in Vancouver last week that because supplying precursor chemicals like ephedrine for illegal drug production is not made a crime in the Canadian Criminal Code, it should not be held against Al Husein, who lives in Surrey with his wife and step-daughter.

"If the claimant's conduct is not criminal in Canada, then it cannot be used for the basis of his exclusion," Hobson said during a two-hour hearing. "Any way you look at it, possession of ephedrine in Canada is not a crime."

Al Husein has been ruled inadmissible by the Immigration and Refugee Board because of his U.S. conviction. One board member said that because al Husein admitted to a role in the scheme to make methamphetamine, he was part of a "conspiracy" to produce an illicit drug, which is in fact against the law in Canada.

Al Husein was considered a bit player in a bigger drug gang when he was caught in the U.S. in March 2000 with 17,000 pseudoephedrine pills and $81,380 cash.His lawyer now says that that even though Al Husein "had the intent when he had the ephedrine to manufacture methamphetamine, that falls short of the test of a conspiracy.""A conspiracy requires proof of an agreement,"

Hobson said.Law enforcement agencies in Canada have complained that crime groups are legally importing large quantities of precursor chemicals to make both meth and ecstasy in clandestine labs.

Much of it is shipped to the U.S. where the same precursors are illegal.Federal immigration lawyer Nanafsheh Sokhansanj said Husein was rightfully excluded by the IRB because of his admitted criminality and involvement in what would amount to a conspiracy to make illegal drugs."Agreeing with someone to produce methamphetamine is a crime," she argued.Sokhansanj told Hansen there does not have to be an identical offence in Canada to correspond with someone's conviction in another country in order to deem the claimant inadmissible in Canada.

The other issue is whether Al Husein officially completed his U.S. sentence. While he finished the jail time, he was deported to Jordan before completing five years of probation.Hobson said Al Husein can't be blamed for the fact he was forcibly deported from the U.S. before the probation period ended.But Sokhansanj said it is clear from the record that the Surrey man voluntarily agreed to be deported in order to avoid spending time in immigration detention.

A warrant remains out for him in the U.S., she said, because of the probation breach.Hansen reserved her ruling in the case.Al Husein landed in Canada in 2002 after his U.S. jail stint and a brief period back in Jordan. He claimed refugee status on the grounds of religious persecution, stating his family and others had threatened him after he found Christianity.But he remained on the radar of police on both sides of the border because of his association with others believed to be procuring chemicals for drug gangs to make meth.

The Americans tried to extradite him and two associates again in 2003 after more evidence surfaced of a conspiracy to smuggle hundreds of kilos of pseudoephedrine pills into the U.S.Al Husein swore an affidavit in his refugee case on the collapse of the second set of U.S. charges, saying: "The extradition proceedings against all of us were completely dropped in November of 2003 when it was conceded that the U.S. could not even establish a prima facie case against anyone."kbolan@png.canwest.com