Montreal imam was deported without incident, border agency affirms

Ejected cleric outraged by his plane ride home, describes treatment as torture

Last Updated: Tuesday, October 23, 2007 | 4:34 PM ET

CBC News

A Montreal imam was handcuffed but not mistreated during his deportation to Tunisia, the Canada Border Services Agency said Tuesday, denying his assertions he was tortured.

Said Jaziri was examined by a doctor before boarding a plane at Montreal's Pierre Elliot Trudeau International Airport on Monday, and he was found to be in good health, agency spokesman Érik Paradis said.

Outspoken imam Said Jaziri arrives for his Immigration and Refugee Board hearing in Montreal last Wednesday. Jaziri was deported Monday under conditions he describes as torture.
(Ryan Remiorz/Canadian Press)

The border agency confirmed Jaziri left Montreal on a chartered flight accompanied by five of its officers.

"He was in great shape and was able to fly," Paradis said in an interview with the Canadian Press. "He had no wounds or anything like that."

The Tunisian-born imam, deported from Canada for falsifying his refugee application, complained about how he was treated by Canadian authorities during his 13-hour trip, calling it torture.

Jaziri arrived in Tunisia Monday night after what he describes as an arduous plane journey from Montreal, during which he was handcuffed for more than half a day under supervision of the border agency.

In an interview with CBC's French-language service Tuesday morning, Jaziri said he was deprived of any outside contact in the hours leading to his departure, including with his pregnant wife, and said the handcuffs he was forced to wear hurt him.

The Muslim cleric said the way he was treated qualified as psychological and physical torture, a nightmare that would take a lifetime to get over.

But despite fears about his personal safety in his native land, Jaziri was able to travel to his family's home without incident and was left alone by Tunisian authorities.

Canadian immigration authorities deported Jaziri following his botched refugee application, in which he failed to reveal a prior criminal record in France, where he served jail time following a 1995 assault.

His recent application for permanent Canadian residency was also turned down.

Jaziri's Quebec-born wife, Nancy-Ann Adams, is eight months pregnant with their first child and has been hospitalized because of complications in the last week.

She was unable to see her husband off at the airport.

She made several emotional pleas last week on her husband's behalf, asking the federal government to stay his deportation.

Jaziri was the cleric at the Al-Qods mosque on Bélanger Street in Montreal's Rosemont district.

He earned a reputation for outspokenness by publicly supporting Sharia law, denouncing homosexuality as a sin and criticizing the controversial publication of the Muhammad cartoons in a Danish newspaper in 2006.