Renu­ka Singh

The nine-mem­ber Or­tho­dox Ha­sidic Jew­ish group has re­turned to Cana­da. The Sun­day Guardian un­der­stands that At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan stepped in with le­gal ad­vice that mo­bilised a char­tered air­plane from West­Jet air­lines and three Cana­di­an mar­shals to ac­com­pa­ny the group back to Que­bec.

The un­marked plane land­ed at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port just af­ter 4.30 pm yes­ter­day and by 5.56 pm, the group was on board. Nine po­lice of­fi­cers al­so pro­vid­ed ad­di­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty for the short trek to the air­port from the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Ho­tel, where the group has been since Mon­day.Chief Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cer Ger­ry Downes sought Ram­lo­gan's le­gal ad­vice on the mat­ter and it was found that the nine ap­peals were not filed with­in the time pre­scribed by the Im­mi­gra­tion Act.

The Sun­day Guardian al­so un­der­stands that a sec­ond group, al­so in­clud­ing chil­dren, is still be­ing sought by Cana­di­an of­fi­cials. This group, the Sun­day Guardian was told, may al­ready be in Guatemala via Mex­i­co.This lat­est de­vel­op­ment comes af­ter the group was de­tained for six days at the tight­ly guard­ed Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Ho­tel, de­spite an at­tempt to file a hasty in­junc­tion to block the move.

When a van was seen leav­ing the ho­tel yes­ter­day, the Sun­day Guardian con­tact­ed the group's lo­cal im­mi­gra­tion lawyer, Farai Hove Ma­sai­sai, who would on­ly said he was cur­rent­ly work­ing on an in­junc­tion to stop that ex­act de­vel­op­ment.But Ma­sai­sai was too late, as just 20 min­utes lat­er, the group was moved to an un­marked white plane and left the coun­try.

The group, led by Cana­di­an Avro­hom Din­kle–who is the on­ly Eng­lish-speak­er among them–has been re­fus­ing to go back to Que­bec and was re­port­ed­ly en route to Guatemala when lo­cal im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cials not­ed in­con­sis­ten­cies with their re­spons­es to ques­tions.

Ram­lo­gan, in a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, con­firmed his in­ter­ven­tion and said the group was be­ing sought by Cana­di­an of­fi­cials to an­swer ques­tions about how the chil­dren were be­ing treat­ed and the con­di­tions un­der which they were be­ing kept. The group ap­pealed that or­der from the On­tario Court of Ap­peal but fled be­fore any pro­nounce­ment was made.Ram­lo­gan said that ap­peal was dis­missed while the group was "camped out" at the ho­tel.

"The group was nev­er al­lowed en­try in­to T&T and there­fore fell in­to an im­mi­gra­tion twi­light zone with their sta­tus un­de­ter­mined and in abeyance," he said.Ram­lo­gan praised im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers and his col­league, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith, who he said worked tire­less­ly along­side him to fi­nalise this is­sue.

"What is clear is that this group was try­ing to evade ju­ris­dic­tion in the Cana­di­an courts and au­thor­i­ties. Once the ap­peal was dis­missed by the chief im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cer, there was no le­gal jus­ti­fi­ca­tion or law­ful ba­sis up­on which the group could be al­lowed to re­main in T&T," he said.He said the Gov­ern­ment would nev­er fa­cil­i­tate a breach of in­ter­na­tion­al courts.