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For six years, man who refuses to identify himself has held in a Canadian prison
- perlgeek 7y agoIt's fun to speculate why somebody would behave this way. A few things I could imagine: * he fears being treated worse if his identity is found out (like an extradition to the US where he could face capital punishment, or detainment by another power that would treat him worse) * he has a fundamental distrust of authorities that makes him somehow behave that way * he has serious mental health issues (the article doesn't mention any psychological assessment) Given his history of fraud, I'd tend toward the first idea, but who knows? Any other ideas?
- bru 7y ago* He forgot it
- tyingq 7y agoHe's wanted in Cameroon for something else, and knows prison there is worse? (Your first guess) See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kondengui_Central_Prison https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kondengui_Central_Prison
- clarry 7y agoMaybe he never had a real identity?
- Razengan 7y ago• He wants to be in prison. • Is a time traveller, an avatar of Nyarlathotep, or something even more bizarre.
- jacknews 7y agoHe's a career fraudster and narcissist? They should just give him a name, convict him of the fraud, and then try to deport him to serve his sentence somewhere (much) less comfortable than Canada. Sorry, I have no patience with these 419 type scammers.
- saagarjha 7y ago> he's a career fraudster and narcissist How do you know this?
- wil421 7y ago> He was convicted for fraudulent documents and given an eight-month sentence in London. Afterwards, he stayed in Britain and was convicted again, under a different name, in 2009 on a fraud charge and sentenced to 12 months imprisonment. > He said his passport was at his apartment in Montreal. Police charged him with two counts of fraud and personation. Certainly a fraudster.
- chongli 7y agolike an extradition to the US where he could face capital punishment Canada does not extradite people without assurances that capital punishment is off the table.
- qzx_pierri 7y agoCanadians are so nice
- perlgeek 7y agoYou have to trust both Canada AND the US to some level to accept that argument, which he might now.
- sundayedition 7y agoDoes that still apply even if they're not a Canadian citizen, and not in Canada legally? I'd think there would be a point where they might say "not my problem, not getting involved"
- wil421 7y agoHe fears going back to Cameroon or whatever other African nation. Given the details in the article it sounds like the US doesn’t have anything on him.
- nroets 7y agoUp this. Many people from Africa want to go to Canada: https://m.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/sa-cant-force-refugees-on-other-countries-says-home-affairs-dept-20191114 https://m.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/sa-cant-force-refugees...
- davidhyde 7y agoMetal health issues and a distrust of people who hold power over him.
- pbhjpbhj 7y agoA corollary to your first point is the possibility he fears retribution from a criminal party -- maybe the passport provider threatened his family if he ever gave up his real name. Other reasons not to give identity could be related to fear of being disgraced, or found by someone seeking retribution, or found by an abuser. Being caught for past crimes does seem most likely.
- b3lvedere 7y agoMy best guess is that he is hoping to outlive the complex system that will eventually 'forget' this case and he will eventually be a free man to stay in Canada due to new people and systems in power.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- keiferski 7y agoThe courts have designated the man “the Unknown Person” and he has been behind bars for more than six years because officials don’t know who he is. This puts him in a bizarre state of limbo: Until Canadian officials know his identity and nationality, they cannot deport him; until they can deport him, they don’t want to release him. The headline is clickbait and I have flagged it. He was arrested for a crime and refuses to identify himself, isn’t a Canadian citizen, and the police haven’t had luck figuring out his identity. They can’t deport him and they can’t just release him if he arrived illegally. This is all in the article. I don’t know what else one could expect the police to do. It’s certainly an odd Kafkesque situation, but he doesn’t seem to want to get out of it.
- glitchc 7y agoI don’t think it’s misreported. As the article states, the prosecutor did stay the charges so that he could be deported. Right now he’s being held for non-cooperation by the CBSA for refusing to identify himself during the deportation hearing. His current documents are forgeries. It is a rather interesting case, but I suspect like the other case of Mr. Walker, the CBSA will collect enough information to identify him and deport him to Cameroon. That seems to be the likely country of origin and a good starting point for further investigation.
- keiferski 7y agoI meant that the title implies that he was imprisoned for six years purely because he didn’t identify himself. The reality is more complex and a better headline would be something like “Man with forged passport refuses to identify himself, even after being held in prison for six years, initially from an unrelated fraud charge.”
- pbhjpbhj 7y agoThe bit I don't understand is why they didn't charge him? It says he was arrested for fraud - the "black banknote" scam - and that they ended his trial before it concluded in order to deport him. Why not conclude the trial, and any other legal processes (eg charge with impersonation, etc.), hand down a sentence, if there's more time to serve have him serve it. Then give him leave to remain or deport to the country he arrived from (I think that's the allowed routine in international law)?
- winter_blue 7y agoIn the US, there is an effective limit of 6 months on the detention/incarceration of people whose nationality cannot be determined (or who are stateless). They are protected by two Supreme Court rulings: Zadvydas v. Davis (2001)[1] and Clark v. Martinez (2005)[2]. Although, right now, the conservative majority Supreme Court is in the process of slowing rolling back these protections, taking us to a darker period. With Jennings v. Rodriguez[3], asylum seekers can effectively be imprisoned indefinitely without even an opportunity for a bond hearing (not actual release, but even the opportunity to seek one) while their asylum (or other immigration) case is pending. Conservatives Supreme Court justices have in the past, during oral hearings, spoken from the bench, about their contempt for Zadvydas v. Davis. It’s uncertain how long these basic human rights protections will survive. [1] Zadvydas v. Davis: https://www.oyez.org/cases/2000/99-7791 https://www.oyez.org/cases/2000/99-7791 ; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zadvydas_v._Davis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zadvydas_v._Davis [2] Clark v. Martinez: https://www.oyez.org/cases/2004/03-878 https://www.oyez.org/cases/2004/03-878 ; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_v._Martinez https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_v._Martinez [3] Jennings v. Rodriguez: https://www.oyez.org/cases/2017/15-1204 https://www.oyez.org/cases/2017/15-1204 ; https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/jennings-v-rodriguez/ https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/jennings-v-rodri...
- romaaeterna 7y agoTo give the conservative perspective: Part of the problem is that the Liberal abuse of asylum provisions has created human trafficking chains of human misery to both America and Europe, with rape/torture/death being the norm in these human movements. Beyond that, the mass migration leads to tremendous political and economic issues in the target countries, disproportionately affecting the poorest. The classic liberal position has been to resist these flows for that reason, while conservatives have been happy to overlook the human exploitation factors in order reap the benefits of cheap labor for the elite.
- steveharman 7y ago> Police in Britain, meanwhile, said a fingerprint check came back positive for the name Bouon Emmanuel Febile, a citizen of Cameroon. Any elation at a breakthrough was muted by a follow up cable from London: It was also positive for a different citizen of Cameroon, a citizen of Haiti, and a man of unknown citizenship. Err, does this cast doubt on the reliability of fingerprint evidence? The term "unique" is widely used in conjunction with fingerprints.
- jacobush 7y agoIf you want to really see behind the matrix, look for "secondary classification". Scary stuff what evidence people can be convicted based upon.
- suresh70 7y agoFingerprints are a very feeble form of biometrics. India's, Aadhar - A biometric-based ID system that primarily uses fingerprints is the best case study to understand this. Fingerprints, like every other human organ, are subject to wear and tear, this combined with probabilistic algorithms to find a match for a given set of fingerprints makes it a fragile system for "unique" identification.
- zcrackerz 7y agoIt's reasonable for casual biometrics, such as a phone unlock, where the likelihood of someone with a match trying to use your phone is remote. Many people will choose the same password or PIN, for example, but of course you can't change your fingerprint on a whim.
- shakna 7y ago> Err, does this cast doubt on the reliability of fingerprint evidence? This isn't really news, though not well publicised in mainstream media. Fingerprinting isn't really "unique" enough to identify an individual from a very large number of suspects. It is good enough to help identify one suspect from a small pool. (And as soon as you run it against a large criminal database, you've opened yourself up to risking misidentification). There have been several wrongful convictions based on fingerprint data [0] that were later overruled. Fingerprinting has been accepted as scientifically accurate, but that hasn't really been verified by studies in the real world. [1][2] [0] https://www.bu.edu/sjmag/scimag2005/opinion/fingerprints.htm https://www.bu.edu/sjmag/scimag2005/opinion/fingerprints.htm [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3093498/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3093498/ [2] https://www.hsdl.org/?abstract&did=458960 https://www.hsdl.org/?abstract&did=458960
- thbr99 7y agoWith illegal border crossing happening everyday at Roxham border, cases like these are bound to happen even more costing Canadian taxpayer $$$.
- alluro2 7y agoLet me guess - you think a wall should be built to prevent it, just with Canadian wild geese instead of alligators and snakes around it
- thbr99 7y agoJust fix the loop hole in safe third country agreement that's all. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada–United_States_Safe_Third_Country_Agreement https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada–United_States_Safe_Th...
- jaeh 7y agohe immigrated legally on a 10 day visa, there is no connection to illegal immigration here, why would you bring it up?
- thbr99 7y agoA visitor visa is not legal immigration. I had to state the countries I visited for the past 10 years. Jobs I had for 10 years,purpose etc when I applied for a visa. CBSA also did background checks on me, called one of my employers for verification. I figured all these by access to information reports later on out of curiosity. How did this guy get a pass with CBSA ?
- jaeh 7y agoi guess you applied for a work visa, he applied for a visitor visa. and yes, a visitor visa is legal immigration for a certain timeframe, after which you overstay your visa. you still legally immigrated, your charge will be overstaying your visa, not related to your immigration at all.
- zupa-hu 7y agoSo isn’t he a citizen by now? :) He should apply.
- jaleiamyers 7y agoso he is the guy every body is talking about up here in canada
- gpvos 7y agoThe article is from May 2019 and says he asked for a meeting "next Wednesday". Any news about that?
- gpvos 7y agoLooks like it's unlikely that any more news will be forthcoming: https://ottawacitizen.com/news/bizarre-case-of-unknown-person-keeps-its-secrets-as-immigration-board-blocks-publics-access/wcm/65dd1719-836d-4a25-b8e7-bae936504b13 https://ottawacitizen.com/news/bizarre-case-of-unknown-perso...
- pbhjpbhj 7y agoThis raises an interesting question for me, can we use biometric data to establish country (ie geographic region) of origin, in the general case? Hair composition, dental treatments, inoculation marks, fingernails, faeces, blood .. obviously some of these are short term indicators. How good of a probability can we get to, how tightly can we pinpoint someone geographically?
- nradov 7y agoNo in general it's not possible. There are a few isolated tribes where this might work, but the rest of humanity is too mixed and varied. The best you can do is a rough probability.
- keiferski 7y agoI’ve always wondered if the world would benefit from a “Freeport” type city/country. No borders, minimal government, no identity documents. Places like this existed in the past; America itself was essentially a “fresh start” country for a good portion of its existence. If such a place existed today, the Canadian government could just put him on a one-way flight there. But I feel like today, it would probably just end up as a crime haven. I can see far-flung space colonies fulfilling this role if/once space travel really kicks off. An interesting thought experiment, at least.
- jmpman 7y agoWhy don’t they just find the other three people with similar fingerprints. Confirm they exist, and call it a day.
- RickJWagner 7y agoThis would make an interesting movie, once we learn the whole truth.