injusticebusters 2003 > > Tilo Johnson: Counterfeit beef in U.S. results in deportation threat

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Tilo Johnson

Jailed man awaiting deportation granted bail

By KIRK MAKIN, JUSTICE REPORTER, Globe and Mail, Feb. 21, 2003

After languishing in jail for three years over a trivial breach of probation, Tilo Johnson, a man seemingly without a country, was suddenly granted bail yesterday pending his deportation.

"It has not been easy for me," the 29-year-old man said in an interview through a Plexiglas barrier at Toronto East Detention Centre. "It has been a living hell."

Mr. Johnson's plight has raised concerns in places as high as the Ontario Court of Appeal, where a panel of judges recently suggested his imprisonment could well "shock the Canadian conscience."

But it has done little to impress federal officials. In December, the appeal judges shot down attempts to extradite Mr. Johnson to the United States, so the government now intends to deport him to Nigeria, the country of his birth.

"I'm in great fear that going back to Nigeria will be suicide," Mr. Johnson said. "This is a living nightmare. I strongly believe I'll be hurt."

The saga began in 1994 when Mr. Johnson, the son of two Jehovah's Witness missionaries, was thrown in a Nigerian jail for several months in connection with pro-democracy activities. Upon his release, he paid smugglers to get him into the United States.

While attending a computer and electronics training program in Georgia, Mr. Johnson was arrested and convicted for possessing a modest amount of counterfeit currency. He was sentenced to six months in jail and a period of probation.

After he served his jail term, U.S. immigration authorities ordered Mr. Johnson (also known as Josiah Umezurike) to leave the country. He moved to Toronto, met a woman, and had a child with her.

In an ironic twist, however, his move to Canada caused Mr. Johnson to breach his probation. The United States asked Canada to extradite him, and Mr. Johnson was thrown in jail pending the outcome. "It is really terrible in here, especially if you're a little bit civilized," Mr. Johnson said in the interview. "A lot of young people fight. I've been beaten up a couple of times over the years. Once, I ended up in hospital."

He said his skin colour and education appear to have counted against him. "They have their stereotypes about people from Africa, that they shouldn't be lettered people, so they decided to teach me a lesson, I guess," Mr. Johnson said. "Compared to Nigeria, I would say this is a hotel. But mentally, this is worse. There is a kind of racial profiling that goes on."

Guidy Mamann, a lawyer for Mr. Johnson, said that if immigration officials reject Mr. Johnson's story about the dangers awaiting him in Nigeria, he will be deported within weeks.

"Basically, my client has spent almost three years in jail, at God knows what cost to the taxpayer, for an extradition proceeding that is never going to happen," Mr. Mamann said. "The Minister of Justice ends up washing his hands of it."

Yesterday's bail decision was a surprise, coming just two weeks after Mr. Johnson was virtually told he would be released, only to have bail denied at the last moment by an immigration official.

"I was crying," Mr. Johnson recalled. "It was really bad. Canada used to be number one in human rights. I'm very disillusioned with the experience I have had in the West. I want to be around my daughter and be alive."

His relationship with his daughter has also been thrown into serious doubt. Several days ago, the child's mother arrived at the jail to serve legal papers announcing her intention to take the child to live in Trinidad. "It was a shock," Mr. Johnson said. "She didn't even speak to me. She just handed me the papers."

Mr. Johnson said he has spoken to the child only a handful of times on the phone, and hasn't seen her since she was a few weeks old.

"My view of this whole sorry situation is that since the Court of Appeal has strongly suggested it (extradition) might be extremely unfair, the Minister of Justice has skirted the issue and paved the way for the Immigration Department to simply deport him to Nigeria," Mr. Mamann said in an interview.

"If they had simply asked themselves in the beginning: 'Why extradite a person for a probation violation?' then he wouldn't have been sitting in jail for almost three years."

Truth can never be told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell

Truth suppress'd, whether by courts or crooks, will find an avenue to be told. Sheila Steele, injusticebusters.com

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Inquiry into the malicious prosecution of David Milgaard untanling 36 years of Saskatchewan police and Crown misconduct: : Opening day 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |

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Terry Arnold: : Snitch a suicide?
RCMP scenario stings: Brian Hutchinson starts diggingVopnis
Abdulai Mohamed
Nfld Defamation story:
Wanda Young
Racism in the Federal Civil Service

The Terrible Story behind the Atif Rafay and Sebastian Burns convictions

Toronto Police paid out $30M in secretly resolved claims over last five years

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April 30, 2005

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