Canada’s immigration enforcement agency attempted to link a former Iranian public servant to the upper echelons of the Islamic regime during the first day of a deportation hearing on Monday.
The Canada Border Services Agency says Abbas Omidi should be deported for allegedly having served as a high-ranking member of the Iranian government, citing a 2022 federal ban on senior Iranian officials.
Mr. Omidi worked for the Iranian public service for nearly 27 years, eventually rising to the rank of deputy director-general of the exploration office in Iran’s Ministry of Industry, Mine and Trade. He has been living in Canada since 2022.
MPs demand answers about failure to deport and name Iranian regime officials
The hearing before the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada takes place as the government faces renewed scrutiny for its efforts to remove senior Iranian officials from the country, after the United States and Israel launched attacks on Iran last month.
Since the 2022 ban was announced, the CBSA has identified 32 people it believes are inadmissible to Canada, but only one has been removed.
During Monday’s hearing, the border agency tried to confirm that Mr. Omidi’s position as deputy head of exploration, which he held from 2013 to 2021, was only one position removed from the role of deputy minister – a top-level public servant.
But Mr. Omidi, 55, countered that he was actually several ranks below the deputy minister. Speaking through an interpreter during the hearing, he also said he was part of a small team and that the number of candidates for his position was “quite limited.”
Mr. Omidi, a trained geologist, said his career with the Iranian government began in 1995, when he worked as an exploration expert for a provincial department of the mining ministry.
He was questioned about forms he previously submitted to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada indicating he had worked for the Iranian Mines and Mining Industries Development and Renovation Organization. The U.S. sanctioned that organization in 2010, calling it “a major holding company that provides services to and aims to expand Iran’s mining and mineral goods sector.”
But Mr. Omidi said he did not work for the organization, and that there was an error because of an incorrect translation.
He later worked for the Geological Survey and Mineral Exploration of Iran, before moving to the exploration department in 2010.
CBSA has removed only one senior Iranian official from Canada under federal ban
The CBSA alleges that Mr. Omidi meets the definition of a senior official as laid out in the federal ban announced in November, 2022. At the time, Ottawa designated Iran a regime “that has engaged in terrorism and systematic and gross human-rights violations.”
The designation applies to Iranian heads of state, cabinet members, ambassadors, senior diplomats, members of the judiciary, senior military, intelligence officials and senior public servants, who are forbidden from entering or staying in Canada.
The ban, first aimed at officials serving in the regime since 2019, followed global protests about the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died in custody after being arrested by Iran’s morality police for allegedly violating the country’s dress code.
Two years later, the federal government extended the scope of the ban to senior officials who had served in the regime since June 22, 2003 – the day Canadian-Iranian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi was arrested in Tehran. She was tortured and died a few weeks later.
Mr. Omidi’s hearing was originally expected to conclude on Tuesday, but the Immigration and Refugee Board adjudicator on Monday said it could go longer.
Global News reported that Mr. Omidi asked last month to have his hearing conducted behind closed doors and for his name to be withheld from publication. The outlet fought the publication ban, and the board ruled last week that the hearing would be made public.
The CBSA says it has been investigating 95 cases involving possible high-ranking members of the Iranian regime, and has reported 32 of those people as inadmissible. Four of them have left the country voluntarily.
As of March 5, one person had been removed from Canada and two others had been issued deportation orders for their ties to the Iranian regime.
A further five people have been deemed admissible by the Immigration and Refugee Board, though the border agency has appealed four of those decisions.