B.C. court acquits four men accused of human smuggling in Tamil migrant case

Share

Nearly eight years after the Ocean Lady migrant ship docked on Vancouver Island carrying 76 Sri Lankans, four men accused of assisting its voyage have been acquitted – the second high-profile defeat for the Crown in a Tamil human-smuggling case this year.

In January, three of four men accused of arranging the voyage of a second Tamil migrant ship, the MV Sun Sea, were found not guilty. A mistrial was declared for the fourth man, although a separate jury deemed him guilty a few months later – making him the only one of the eight in the two cases to be convicted.

The Public Prosecution Service – which had charged another man amid efforts to extradite him from France – said on Thursday that it does not anticipate any further prosecutions involving the Ocean Lady or the Sun Sea, appearing to bring a close to a slow-moving legal battle that ran to the Supreme Court of Canada and drew the ire of refugee advocates.

In the Ocean Lady case, prosecutors had argued the four men who were charged played prominent roles on board the ship and should not be able to use a defence of mutual assistance outlined by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2015.

But B.C. Supreme Court Justice Arne Silverman disagreed, noting there was no direct evidence the four men received any financial benefit for their conduct and ruling many – if not all – of the 76 migrants worked together to get the ship to Canada.

Justice Silverman said that if the Crown's argument that migrants on a large vessel should never be able to use the defence of mutual aid were correct, "it would be impossible for migrants to ever escape fear of persecution when travelling by sea."

"Someone has to operate the boat. Someone has to cook. Someone has to be responsible for the food and the water and the medicine. It is hypocritical to say we accept refugees who arrive at our borders if we make it automatically illegal for them to even attempt to get here," he wrote.

The Supreme Court of Canada has said those who arrange the arrival of migrants are not guilty of an offence if they are providing humanitarian aid to asylum-seekers or are asylum-seekers providing on another mutual aid.

Phillip Rankin, a lawyer who represented one of the four men, Jeyachandran Kanagarajah, said outside court that "those who profit should be prosecuted and those who seek asylum should not be prosecuted."

Mr. Kanagarajah, who had been accused of helping migrants with transportation prior to the Ocean Lady's departure, said after the verdict he did not have the words to explain how happy he was.

He said most of the refugees believed they would die during the journey because of storms and rough seas.

"Fortunately, we are here today," he said.

Janet Dench, executive director of the Canadian Council for Refugees, which intervened in the Supreme Court of Canada case involving the Ocean Lady, said refugees have to be able to help one another flee persecution.

Justice Silverman's ruling noted Sri Lanka had, prior to the Ocean Lady's departure, been ravaged by decades of civil war. He said many Tamils found themselves caught between government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a group designated a terrorist organization by countries including Canada.

Ms. Dench said this country's response to the arrivals of the Ocean Lady and particularly the Sun Sea was "a serious blot on Canada's history in terms of receiving refugees." Many of the Sun Sea passengers were held in custody for months.

"For some reason, and it's not only in Canada but certainly in Canada, there is a response to people arriving by boat that is completely out of proportion," Ms. Dench said.

An Immigration and Refugee Board spokesperson said 57 of the refugee claims from the Ocean Lady have been finalized. Thirty-six, or 59 per cent, were accepted.

For the Sun Sea, 337 refugee claims have been finalized. The spokesperson said 230, or 64 per cent, have been accepted.

With a report from The Canadian Press