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Nairobi, July 11, 2009 – A Toronto woman facing jail in Kenya says she
feels relieved after Canadian officials finally took her fingerprints to
help settle her identity.
"I feel a lot better," Suaad Hagi Mohamud said on Thursday by phone from
Nairobi, where she has been stranded for seven weeks, eight days of that
time in jail. "I really want to come back home."
Canadian consular officials, who for six weeks refused to have anything
to do with the woman, took her prints and asked her such questions as
where she lives, who her boss is at the ATS courier plant in Etobicoke
and who is looking after her 12-year-old son in Toronto.
But they did not indicate when they might match her prints with those on
her original Somali refugee application made 10 years ago.
"They said they would get back to me," she said.
Mohamud, 31, was about to leave Kenya on May 17 after a short visit when
airport officials stopped her for not looking like her Canadian passport
photo – a common ruse for soliciting a bribe, she says.
The Kenyans jailed her. She was released eight days later on $2,500
(U.S.) bail, pending trial.
On May 21, the Kenyans notified the Canadian high commission of the
arrest.
A week later, a Canadian consular official wrote Kenyan immigration to
say "conclusive investigations" confirm the arrested woman was an
imposter. The official sent them the voided passport to help with their
prosecution.
For weeks, Mohamud – or the woman posing as Mohamud – begged the
Canadians to take her fingerprints but they refused to return her calls.
"That's all we're asking," family spokesperson and Toronto radio host
Kawnayn Hussein said on hearing the prints had been taken.
"It's somehow encouraging for us," said Mohamed Dalmar of Ottawa's
Catholic Settlement Centre, who has worked for three years on a similar
case.
Source: Toronto Star, July 10, 2009
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