Ears didn't match passport photograph

Emily Senger, National Post, with files from Canwest News Service

Nairobi, Kenya, August 22, 2009 – A Canadian man who has been stranded in Kenya for three years after a dispute over the legitimacy of his passport photo may finally return to Canada in coming weeks, the man's lawyer said yesterday.

Abdihakim Mohamed, a 25-year-old Canadian who has autism, has been stuck in Kenya since a 2006 attempt to renew his passport was halted by Canadian officials who claimed his ears looked different in a new passport photo, said his Ottawa-based lawyer Jean Lash.

Mr. Mohamed's mother, Anab Issa, has attempted to prove her son's identity through a series of affidavits, but the process has been stalled because Mr. Mohamed, who was born in Somalia, doesn't have a birth certificate or other documents that the Canadian government requested he produce to prove his identity.

The case draws a parallel to that of Suaad Hagi Mohamud, a 31-year-old Canadian citizen who returned to her home in Toronto on Saturday. The Somali-born Canadian was trapped in Kenya for three months and ended up in jail for a week after Canadian officials there said her lips did not match her four-year-old passport photo.

Critics say both cases were hampered by the Canadian High Commission in Nairobi, Kenya. Mohamed Dalmar, a manager at the Catholic Immigration Centre of Ottawa, believes officials there are wary of the large number of Somali refugees who have fled conflict in their own country and may be looking for a way into Canada.

"Along the years, you get a mentality to be extra careful of these people," Mr. Dalmar said. "The High Commission [is] more watchful and assumes that these people want to come to Canada by fraudulent means."

Mr. Dalmar, a Somali-Canadian, has worked with Ms. Issa for the past three years as she has attempted to bring her son back to Canada and has known Ms. Issa and her son since 1996.

According to Ms. Lash, in 2004 Mr. Mohamed went back to Somalia with his mother after a doctor recommended that spending time with family members in his home country might help the young man's autism.

Ms. Issa left her son with his grandmother and aunt in Somalia and went back to Canada, taking her son's passport with her for safekeeping.

"What she did was reasonable under the circumstances," Ms. Lash said. "She thought she had authority to carry it and she knew that if she left it in Somalia with him it could get stolen."

At Pearson International Airport in Toronto, Ms. Issa was stopped and her son's passport confiscated. It is unclear why the passport was taken. The passport then expired and when Ms. Issa applied for a new one in 2006, Kenyan officials denied that request. In 2008, Passport Canada told her she was under investigation for applying for a passport for an imposter. It was then that Ms. Issa, an Ottawa-resident, first contacted a lawyer.

Source: National Post, August 21, 2009

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