Suspected LTTE member fights deportation to remain in Canada

 A Toronto woman ordered out of Canada for being a self-declared member of the LTTE argues the only evidence against her is her own past claims, which she says are not credible, the Canadian National Post reported.

Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board, the Minister of Public Safety and the Federal Court of Canada, however, reject her revision of her past in Sri Lanka during the civil war.

Jayasiri Puvanenthiram was first declared inadmissible to Canada in 2004 for being a member of an organization engaging in terrorism. She has doggedly fought to remain in Canada, fighting appeals and pleas that have allowed her an additional 12 years in the country with her husband and two children, the report claimed.

She said her family urgently needs her in Canada.

Puvanenthiram is caregiver to her elderly and ill parents; her youngest son, a Canadian citizen, depends on her because of chronic medical problems; her eldest son has learning and development issues; and her husband has health problems that may require surgery, the report claimed.

When Puvanenthiram first arrived in Canada in 2002, however, she seemed to be in a different space.

She told border agents she had been a voluntary member the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), commonly called the Tamil Tigers, an outlawed terrorist group in Canada.

It was the same account she earlier gave German authorities, when she lived there from 1998 to 2002 after leaving Sri Lanka.

In Germany, she applied for refugee status and detailed her time in Sri Lanka during the lengthy civil war between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government.

Born in 1975 in Sri Lanka, Puvanenthiram is an ethnic Tamil. She originally said she started working for the student wing of the LTTE in 1992 before voluntarily joining the LTTE proper in 1993.

Puvanenthiram said she attended to injured persons until 1994, and had a year of basic training in self-defence by the LTTE. By 1995, her duties included digging bunkers, transporting injured people and assisting in hospitals.

When government forces attacked an LTTE camp she moved to another, located in Kilinichchi, where she stayed for another three years. At the LTTE’s Kilinichchi camp she received weapons training from 1995 to 1998 before asking permission to be excused due to poor health. Her request, she told German authorities, was denied, the report claimed.

When she made her new refugee claim in Canada, all of that changed.

She told the IRB she did not voluntarily join or even support the LTTE and that she was forced to assist the group and only did so under duress. She said that between 1993 and 1995, the LTTE threatened her 10 to 12 times to recruit her.

She told the IRB at her admissibility hearing that she didn’t know anything about the student wing of the group; had never received weapons or self-defence training; never served in the Kilinichchi camp; and never sought permission to leave for health reasons.

Puvanenthiram argued there is no evidence against her — except her own words, which were lies. She said she fabricated the account of LTTE involvement and the German authorities did not believe her account. Even if it were true, she argued, it is not credible because it is unsupported by other information.

Justice Richard Bell dismissed her appeal in a decision released this month, saying the minister’s decision “was justified, transparent and intelligible, and was within the range of possible, acceptable outcomes.”

Bell raised the likelihood this will not end her fight. Puvanenthiram may be entitled to request a new Pre-Removal Risk Assessment, and that would bring a decision that could be appealed, again, to the Federal Court.