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news

No Game, Consul

By Marc Lostracco

Suaad Hagi Mohamud, the 31-year-old Toronto woman who was stranded in Kenya for three months due to a dustup with customs officials, is now suing the Canadian government for $2.5 million and asking for an inquiry and public apology. After allegedly denying a request for a bribe by an airline official on her way home from the Nairobi airport, Mohamud was tossed into Langata Women’s Prison for a week on the charge of passport fraud, because the officer claimed her lips looked different than in her four-year-old passport photo. Trapped in immigration limbo, it took the Canada Border Services Agency a staggering two-and-a-half months to confirm her identity using a DNA test, even though Mohamud had been vouched for by her family, volunteered a cross-check on her fingerprints, and was carrying at least five pieces of valid identification, including an Ontario health card and driver’s licence. (CORRECTION: A previous version of the story incorrectly indicated that it was an immigration official that solicited a bribe; it was a KLM airline official.)

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  • west side dweller

    are you sure it was the Canadian official who was was soliciciting bribes?

  • http://www.bitpicture.com Marc Lostracco

    Bribing customs officials in Kenya is not uncommon, but while Mohamud was arrested and thrown in jail by Kenyan officials, it was by request of the Canadian Border Service Agency—the agency that declared her an impostor. On your way out of the country, you’re dealing with Canadian officials. On the way in, you’re dealing with officials from the country you’re entering.
    Why? Is it so hard to comprehend that a representative of the Canadian government would ask for bribes?

  • http://www.pragmatic.ca Greg Smith

    I think he is asking not because it is inconsistent with other reports.
    NB: Canada Border Services Agency.

  • http://www.pragmatic.ca Greg Smith

    For example:

    Her troubles began May 21. She was preparing to leave the East African nation after a short visit when a Kenyan airport official suggested that she didn’t resemble the woman in her passport photo.
    Mohamud interpreted the line as a solicitation for a bribe, she has said, and refused to pay. She was arrested and Canada’s high commission sided with the Kenyans.

  • http://www.pragmatic.ca Greg Smith

    Grr, I meant “I think he is asking not because it is incomprehensible, but because it is inconsistent with other reports”.

  • http://undefined west side dweller

    no it isn’t hard to comprehend, but maybe you should read up on a story first before you write about it.
    http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/680529
    ” A Kenyan KLM employee stopped her. “He told me he could make me miss my flight,” she said of the KLM worker, who suggested Mohamud didn’t look like her passport photo.
    He seemed to be soliciting a bribe, she said, an experience Somali-born Torontonians say is commonplace for them at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.
    When she didn’t pay, a Kenyan immigration official arrested her. Canadian consular officials went along, returning Mohamud to the Kenyans, who threw her in jail on charges of entering Kenya illegally on a passport not her own.”
    and to offer the other side of the spectrum:
    http://www.montrealgazette.com/Mohamud+ordeal+demands+redress/1914613/story.html
    At the airport, the single mother was detained by a Kenyan official who said her lips did not look the same as in her 4-year-old passport photo. Mohamud, 31, believed the official wanted a bribe.

  • http://www.bitpicture.com Marc Lostracco

    Sorry, folks, I’m just reading the comments now and I’ve corrected the article to reflect that it was the KLM official and not the immigration official.
    What happened is that the airline official, upon allegedly being rejected a bribe, sent Mohamud to airport exit control (Kenyan authorities), who immediately detained her. The following day, the High Commission of Canada concurred, labelling her an impostor and voiding her passport without launching their own investigation, despite Mohamud providing more-than-sufficient valid ID on the spot. The High Commission then recommended to Kenyan authorities that she be prosecuted.
    About a month later, Lawrence Cannon, Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, actually said that there was “no tangible proof” that Mohamud was Canadian, again, despite extensive proof that she was and despite full cooperation from Mohamud to confirm her identity. This is the man in Ottawa whose job it is to be responsible for Canadians travelling abroad.
    Mohamud’s false arrest was the fault of the Kenyan authorities, but its perpetuation longer than a day or two is the fault of Canadian authorities, who not only allowed her to go to prison, but didn’t even bother to see if it was a result of well-known corruption at Kenyatta airport, and then seemingly lollygagged with other mysterious priorities while she festered for more than two months in bureaucratic limbo, living in Kenyan slum hotels, unable to return to home to her family. I think that’s worth a lawsuit, big-time.

  • http://undefined TaffyMoon

    Too bad her name wasn’t Sue MacDonald – they would have had her out of there in 48 hours. Harper gov’t are racist to the bone.