Canadian Supreme Court finds Sri Lankan men accused of human smuggling not guilty

A Supreme Court judge in Canada has acquitted four Sri Lankan men on charges of human smuggling in relation to the arrival of 76 Tamil migrants on the MV Ocean Lady ship nearly nine years ago.

Accoridng to a report that appeared in CBC News, the ramshackle vessel traveled across the Pacific Ocean for an estimated 45 days before it arrived in B.C. in October of 2009.

Four people aboard — Francis Appulonappa, Hamalraj Handasamy, Jeyachandran Kanagarajah and Vignarajah Thevarajah — were charged with human smuggling. On Thursday, Justice Arne Silverman found all of them not guilty.

"I am satisfied that the sole motive that each of them had was, through mutual aid, to get themselves to Canada," said Justice Silverman in his 57-page decision.

Crown lawyers tried to argue that the men orchestrated the voyage to make a profit, claiming they collected money from passengers.

Justice Silverman said there was not enough evidence to prove that.

"While there is evidence of organized crime, I am not satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that the activities of any of these four accused were connected to it."

Lawyers for the men used the argument of what's called "mutual assistance" in their defence of the charges of human smuggling.

Tamil migrants aboard MV Ocean Lady wave to a passing RCMP helicopter before the ship was seized off the coast of Vancouver Island. (RCMP). Courtesy CBC NEWS

The court found that two sections of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act do not apply to some people who help refugee claimants reach Canada..

"Those people who are seeking asylum, those people who are assisting their families or those people that who are mutually assisting one another to seek asylum, you cannot convict those people of human smuggling. That's an exemption that the court created," said Phil Rankin, lawyer for Jeyachandran Kanagarajah, one of the four men accused.