An undated copy photo of Suaad Haji Mohamud, who has been stranded in Kenya for 2 1/2 months after being accused of using someone else's Canadian passport. Photograph by: Handout, CNS
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
A spokesperson for the Canada Border Services Agency said Tuesday travel documents are being prepared for Suaad Haji Mohamud, 31, after DNA tests confirmed her identity.
Mohamud has been stranded in Kenya since she was stopped May 21 at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi by a Kenyan immigration official who told her she did not look like the four-year-old photograph in the passport she was carrying.
Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Emma Welford said Mohamud has a meeting with officials at the Canadian High Commission as a "first step" in discussing arrangements for her repatriation.
"At the end of the day, there will be a travel document that will allow her to be able to leave Kenya and enter Canada," Welford said.
Mohamud's Toronto lawyer, Raoul Boulakia, said Ottawa has agreed to ask Kenyan authorities to drop charges Mohamud faces for possessing and using a passport issued to another person and being unlawfully present in the country.
He said no timeline has been given as to when Mohamud might be back on Canadian soil.
The Somali-born woman travelled to Kenya on April 30 to visit her mother, leaving her son, 12, in the care of a friend in Toronto.
Kenyan immigration officials said that although Mohamud had the same facial features as the passport photograph, her lips were different from those in the photo.
She offered other pieces of identification and her fingerprints, but to no avail.
In a letter to Kenyan immigration services, the Canadian High Commission said it carried out "conclusive investigations" and confirmed she was an "impostor."
Her passport was handed over to Kenyan authorities as evidence in their prosecution.
Mohamud spent eight days in a Kenyan jail and faces charges that could see her serve jail time or be deported to Somalia, Boulakia said.
Criminal proceedings against her in Kenya were delayed at the request of Canadian officials, who also agreed on July 23 to DNA tests for Mohamud, her son and former husband.
Boulakia said DNA test results show there is a 99.9 per cent liklihood Mohamud is the boy's mother.
"The CBSA recognizes the results of the DNA test" said Canada Border Services Agency spokeswoman Tracie LeBlanc.
Mohamud said her ordeal has been "horrible" but she is now focused on returning home to her son.
"I am angry," Mohamud said from Nairobi. "But what matters to me right now is to be with my little boy. I miss him so much."
Boulakia said Canadian officials have not released any information on why they deemed Mohamud an impostor. He said the government needs to review how Canadian consulates evaluate cases in the future.
"There definitely needs to be a review of what went wrong," Boulakia said. "What is the methodology for determining that they really are a Canadian citizen? We can't just go by intuition or profiling or value judgments. We need a methodology that all Canadians know because we're citizens and we need to be able to know what we can count on."
Source: Toronto Star, August 11, 2009