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A Halifax Arab-Israeli man who claims to have worked for four years as an undercover counter-terrorism operative tried to set himself on fire Sunday on the steps of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service’s Halifax office in protest of his deportation.

Lawyer Lee Cohen confirmed his client disclosed his plan to end his own life after Cohen’s last-minute plea to the Canada Border Services Agency for a delay in the deportation process failed Sunday morning.

The man, who does not want his name published for fear of his safety, told The Chronicle Herald last week that he had participated in several highly classified operations that saved many Canadian lives and faced certain death if deported.

Cohen took on the man’s case in mid-July and had been appealing to the Immigration Department to stop his removal from Canada, which was scheduled for Sunday.

“I’m angry by the fact that there was no need for any of this at this time,” the long-time immigration lawyer said, his voice cracking with emotion. “There was a lot of discretion available to the people who were forcing him out of the country and they refused to exercise it.”

Cohen said he tried unsuccessfully to talk the man out of a plan to douse himself with gasoline on the steps of the CSIS office on Barrington Street.

Fears deportation more than death

The man was driving a U-Haul van and parked the vehicle on Barrington Street, just south of the CSIS office, Cohen said.

“When I met with him today about an hour and a half before he poured gasoline over himself, we talked again and I strongly urged him to not go through with this and he was very calm,” the lawyer said.

“He asked me if I had any children and I said I don’t, and he responded, ‘Well, I’m your son.’ His eyes welled up and he drove away. I’m very upset about this.

“He was clearly not going to allow himself to be deported. He was going to kill himself to avoid it. He said, ‘I will be deporting myself,’ and insisted it was much better for him to control his demise than to be placed in others who will kill him in ways no one would want to experience.”

A number of Halifax Regional Police officers and vehicles attended the area around Barrington Street and Spring Garden Road shortly before 3 p.m. Sunday. They closed the area to vehicular traffic and pedestrians.

A woman who was standing near the scene said she saw a brown-skinned man being arrested and quickly put into a police van at about 2:50 p.m. The woman, who did not want her name used, said she and the man she was with were ordered by police to get out of the area.

The Herald contacted police for more information but did not get a response by end of day.

No response from federal ministers on plight

Since taking on the man’s case, Cohen had been trying to get the deportation order stayed in order to pursue a pre-removal risk assessment application that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada uses to determine whether an applicant’s life is at risk by being deported.

Cohen said he’s made several inquiries over the past two weeks to pursue this with CSIS head office in Ottawa, federal Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, who oversees the organization, and Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen, but has yet to get a response.

The man had completed a pre-removal risk assessment application in 2017, roughly a year after he said he was dropped by CSIS without reason. He said he did not disclose that he worked for CSIS on the application because he was told never to disclose his work to anyone.

He said he was contacted this June by a Canada Border Services Agency officer informing him that his deportation was scheduled for Sept. 8. He and his lawyer have been fighting for an opportunity to resubmit the application with details of his CSIS work.

“It’s another example of how cruel deportation is,” said Cohen. “It’s bad enough to deport somebody who is not a danger to the Canadian public, who has served Canada through his work with CSIS and has an ongoing application that needs to be adjudicated. But to deport somebody who genuinely fears for his life is even that much more cruel.”

Michel Juneau-Katsuya, a former senior manager with CSIS, told the Herald last week that the man’s case is believable and, if true, he deserves a hearing.

The Herald contacted both federal ministers last week but neither have commented.

Lawyer urges public to help

Cohen is urging the public to contact Goodale’s office and request that his client’s removal order be delayed until he has the chance to resubmit his pre-removal risk application and it goes to a hearing.

The former operative had applied for refugee status after his arrival to Canada in 2009 and was issued a removal order subject to a refugee board hearing. But the man, who was homeless at the time, did not get notice of the hearing date scheduled later that year and his deporation moved ahead.

But he remained in Canada and three years later, in 2012, he contacted CSIS offering to work for the agency in exchange for permanent residency. The agency agreed, he said, but now he’s facing deportation.

The former operative said CSIS was originally interested in his intel on the terrorist group Hezbollah. His ex-partner’s family had ties with the organization. Over a period of four years, he said he participated in nearly weekly assignments that involved surveilling people of interest to CSIS.

The man participated in several highly classified operations in Halifax. In 2014, he was instrumental in the arrest of a Halifax university student affiliated with al-Qaida.

The following year he participated in an operation involving the eventual deportation of an African man with ties to ISIS who was recruiting and building up a collection of guns.

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