Suaad Hagi Mohamud, right, seen in a Nairobi court on Friday after prosecutors dropped charges against her of falsely claiming to be a Canadian citizen. (Khalil Senosi/Reuters)

A Canadian woman stranded in Kenya boarded a flight home Friday evening after false-identity charges against her were dropped in a Nairobi court.

Suaad Hagi Mohamud, 31, had been unable to leave Kenya since May, when authorities said her lips did not look the way they did in her four-year-old passport photo.

Canadian consular officials called her an impostor, voided her passport and urged Kenyan officials to prosecute her.

On Friday morning, however, a Kenyan judge agreed to drop the charges, including using another person's passport and being in Kenya illegally.

"I have a message to the government [of Canada], and what I'm saying to them is just let them treat their citizens the way they [are] supposed to be [treated] no matter where they go," Mohamud told reporters outside court in Nairobi.

"It's not only [a] lesson for me, it's a lesson for all Canadian citizens."

ATS, a courier company in Toronto, was holding Mohamud's job as an overnight mid-level supervisor at its sorting plant for when she returns.

Foreign Affairs said in a release that Mohamud was being assisted with her departure.

"There are no impediments to her return to Canada," a news release from Foreign Affairs said. "Consular officials are assisting with her departure today."

Expected to return Saturday

Mohamud's Canadian lawyer Raoul Boulakia said Mohamud is expected to return to Toronto on Saturday afternoon and be reunited with her 12-year-old son.

"Nothing should be such a nightmare, but I'm really relieved," Boulakia said. "It's been up and down, this whole process, a lot of moments that were very anxious, and I'm really relieved that she's finally coming home."

Mohamud's ordeal began when she tried to leave Kenya after a two-week visit with her mother in May.

Officials maintained she was not who she claimed to be, even after Mohamud handed over numerous pieces of identification, offered fingerprints and finally demanded that her DNA be tested.

It wasn't until the DNA test confirmed her identity on Monday that Canadian officials began preparing emergency travel documents for her return.

Mohamud's hearing Friday was initially delayed because a letter from the Canadian High Commission confirming her identity had been misplaced.

After the document was found, the judge made the decision to drop the charges, Foreign Affairs said.

Earlier in the day, Mohamud declined to comment on the court's decision, saying she just wants to get home now.

"I'm on my way. Can I just please leave?" she told CBC News.

Boulakia said his client is "absolutely worn out."

"She is really at her limit," he said.

Tories 'let Canadians down' abroad: Ignatieff

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has promised the federal government will investigate how the Canada Border Services Agency handled the case.

"Our first priority as a government is obviously to see Ms. Mohamud get on a flight back to Canada," Harper said in a statement on Friday. "This is what the government is currently doing."

But Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff slammed the Harper government's handling of the case, saying it raises troubling questions about whether the Conservatives are willing to step up for Canadians who get into difficulty overseas.

"Time after time and case after case, they let Canadians down," Ignatieff told CBC News on Friday in an interview from Summerside, P.E.I.

"Canadian citizenship is indivisible. She is a citizen in good standing and she should never have to prove her citizenship with a DNA test."

With files from The Canadian Press