THE CANADIAN PRESS -- VANCOUVER - One of China's most wanted fugitives has been ordered released again from the revolving door of custody in what's believed to be Canada's longest refugee battle.Lai Changxing has spent 12 years fighting his return to China, and he faces expulsion again next week after Canada's Federal Court reviews his latest deportation order.
He was arrested last week in preparation for deportation after a second federal government report concluded Lai wasn't in danger if he was returned to face justice in China.
The federal court granted a temporary stay against the order Monday and will listen to full arguments July 21 on whether Lai could be tortured or killed if he's returned.
Chinese authorities allege Lai orchestrated a vast smuggling ring that cheated the government out of billions of dollars in duties on imported goods and bribed officials to look the other way.
Lawyers for the Canada Border Services Agency asked that Lai be held in custody until the hearing, but an Immigration and Refugee Board adjudicator ordered Lai released Tuesday.
Leeann King concluded Lai is not a flight risk, but did require him to report in once a week, instead of once a month. She did, however, remove one previous condition of his release that he not associate with known members of the criminal gang the Big Circle Boys.
An agency lawyer argued the Lai breached the previous conditions by having contact with gang members, but King reasoned that if border agency officers wouldn't tell him who they believed were gang members, how was he supposed to know.
"They are unreasonable conditions and impossible for Mr. Lai to comply with," she said in her ruling.
King noted that when Lai received his first pre-removal assessment in May 2006 he knew for a few days before he was contacted by border agency officials.
"Mr. Lai didn't flee, didn't attempt to evade CBSA officers and didn't beach his terms."
A second pre-removal assessment took almost five years to complete and Lai's lawyer, Darryl Larson, said it appeared as if the 100-page report was written to make sure Lai was removed from Canada.
He said his client doesn't think he'll get the death sentence, because that would be a public process.
"What he thinks will happen is that he'll be back in the system and all of the sudden he'll have heart attack or there will be some kind of fatal illness or something that he suffers that basically takes him out of the picture," Larson said outside the hearing room.
Larson said Lai can only continue with his legal fight, hoping eventually something breaks through in his favour.
"If it comes down to that, the man is prepared to go back."
Larson said if Lai's case isn't the longest process in Canadian history, it is certainly close.
Lai, who was listening to the decision over the telephone from jail, let out an audible sigh when he heard the decision.
Chinese authorities accuse Lai of masterminding a network that smuggled as much as $10 billion of goods with the protection of corrupt government officials who he plied with cash, prostitutes and booze.
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Source: Huffington
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