By JULIE HORBAL, SUN MEDIA

Winnipeg, March 25, 2008 – The surrogate family of a Somali-born refugee convicted of numerous crimes in Winnipeg courts fears the only thing waiting for their loved one -- who will later this week involuntarily return to his homeland -- is certain death.

Despite an ongoing legal battle to keep him from deportation, officials removed Yassin Ibrahim, 23, from Winnipeg yesterday and sent him to Toronto, where he will board a plane today with a handful of other Somalian convicts bound for the war-torn country.

"We are very, very fearful he will be killed there," said Deb Thordarson, a teacher who took in the Ibrahim family when they moved to Winnipeg eight years ago.

"Different factions of the clans are at war. His mother told him they're killing members of his clan in the community where he's going," Thordarson added.

Ibrahim was convicted of numerous violent crimes in 2005 and spent the past three years bouncing around Manitoba prisons, awaiting trial for assault charges that were dropped prior to his deportation.

UNDUE PROCESS

Last week, a federal judge ruled him a danger to society but human rights lawyer David Matas said his client is a victim of undue process -- a claim he is formally filing in court today.

According to Matas, Ibrahim only found out about his deportation after seeing a newspaper article about himself.

The man received the order from a corrections officer while detained in a Brandon jail, but didn't have the reading comprehension to understand it, Matas said.

The lawyer said he also finds it strange that the Crown dropped all outstanding charges against Ibrahim in order to have him deported.

Now, he hopes to get another deportation hearing scheduled and return Ibrahim to Winnipeg before it's too late.

"He's not in a position to defend himself (in Somalia)," Matas said.

"It's a very dangerous place. His father was killed, he was in a school where teachers were shot at, there's been a lot of violence in his immediate neighborhood."

Source: Winnipegsun.com