The next time the CBC gets a phone call from a repeat, violent refugee offender who’s been deported to Somalia and who claims he’s being held captive at an airport by armed extremists, they’ll probably think twice before running a story about it.
Looks like our public broadcaster got duped this week by convicted criminal and known con artist Mohamed Said Jama.
Jama, the criminal refugee I told you about earlier this year who was at large in Winnipeg after a failed deportation order last year, has finally been punted from Canada.
He was deported Sunday.
Public Safety Minister Vic Toews and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney issued a joint-release Wednesday announcing the successful deportation of Jama, which occurred without any major incident.
“The deportation of this serious criminal from our country is welcome news for the safety of our communities — I know Manitobans and many Canadians have been waiting for this day for some time,” Toews said in the release. “We will not tolerate those who come to this country and commit violent crimes.”
The CBC reported this week that Jama phoned them from a government-chartered plane in Bosaso, Somalia.
In a “telephone interview”, Jama said he was being held hostage by armed “extremists” who had surrounded the plane he was on at the airport.
According to the reports, Jama said the extremists wanted $100,000 or they would kill him.
The CBC ran a story Wednesday saying the extremists had fired a shot at the plane, hitting a man in the leg.
See any corroborating evidence in this fairy tale Jama cooked up?
The CBC ran two days of reports based solely on the word of a slimeball, violent criminal who — had the CBC done its homework — would have known is a perpetual con man and a master at manipulation.
The Winnipeg Sun exposed in a series of stories earlier this year how Jama stalled his deportation orders through a number of legal challenges and how he was eventually released by Immigration and Refugee Board member Leeann King on Feb 5.
Jama, who has a lengthy criminal record that includes stabbing a man in the face during a violent home invasion, immediately took a powder — big surprise — and was apprehended after the Sun reported there was a Canada-wide warrant for his arrest.
When officials attempted to deport Jama in October of last year, he managed to foil the removal by smuggling a cellphone into his holding room in Nairobi, Kenya, where Canadian escorts had planned to put him on a chartered plane bound for Somalia.
Jama was able to use his phone to contact family in Somalia and stir up enough trouble among rival tribes that Canadian officials no longer felt safe sending a chartered plane into the area.
So he was returned to Canada.
According to confidential memos obtained by the Sun, removal to Somalia had become so problematic and unsafe that deportations to the war-torn country had been temporarily suspended by the Canada Border Services Agency last fall.
It appears they’ve made progress on that since Jama is now there and there is no evidence of gun-toting extremists holding up the government-chartered plane demanding $100,000.
“The removal followed set procedures and unfolded according to plan,” the joint government release said.
Maybe Jama thought he could tap in one last time to Canada’s public treasury by convincing the CBC to wire him $100,000.
Fortunately, the jig is now up for Mr. Jama and the streets of Winnipeg are safer for it.
For more, visit Brodbeck’s blog Raise a Little Hell at winnipegsun.com. Reach Tom by e-mail at tom.brodbeck@sunmedia.ca
Source: Winnipeg Sun
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