TerrorismCanadian government finally deports terrorist
After a 26-year long legal battle, Canada two weeks ago deported a Palestinian terrorist who attacked an El Al plane in Athens in 1968. He entered Canada with a false passport, but his identity was quickly discovered. The main point of contention was where should Issa Mohammad, the terrorist, be deported to: he was a Palestinian, but there is no Palestinian state to accept him. The Lebanese government finally agreed to take him, and he was deported
In 1968 two Palestinian terrorists shot at El Al flight 253 as it proceeded to take off at Athens Airport in Greece. One person was killed and two others were injured.
The National Post reports that Naheb Suleiman and Mahmoud Mohammad Issa Mohammad, members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, rushed the plane while it was on the tarmac, firing and throwing grenades. Leon Shiridan, an Israeli maritime engineer, was sitting in a window seat on his way to New York for a job when one of the bullets pierced the window and hit Leon in the head, killing him.
Just moments earlier, Shiridan switched seats with a five-year old girl so she could sit closer to her parents.
The Greek police caught up to Mohammad and sentenced him to seventeen years for the attack. He was soon t released when Palestinian terrorists took over another plane and threatened to kill everyone on board unless Mohammad was released.
Mohammad eventually ended up in Canada with his wife and three children. When the Canadian government discovered that he was convicted of terrorism, they tried to deport him, but the result was a 26-year long legal battle. The Post notes that the main point of contention was where should Mohammad be deported to: he was a Palestinian, but there is no Palestinian state to accept him. The Lebanese government finally agreed to take him, and he was deported two weeks ago.
Immigration Minister Jason Kenney told reporters the amount of money the government spent on deporting Mohammad was “enormous.”
“I could easily say it runs into the millions of dollars, given the number of legal reviews that went into this case.” Kenney added.
“We should never allow a situation like this to happen again,” Kenney told reporters. After becoming immigration minister, Kenny vowed to remove the “terrorist killer” from Canada, and close the “flaws and loopholes” that had allowed him to stay in Canada for so long.
