A suspected war criminal is being allowed to stay in Canada for now because the federal Border Services Agency (CBSA) failed to translate documents in his case into French and now says it can't afford to.

The CBSA's decision to drop its case against the man – documented by investigators in a 500-page report, in English – means he will be allowed to proceed with his refugee claim.

The man's lawyer, Stephane Handfield, says his client was a soldier in the former Yugoslavia who made a refugee claim in 2013.

Claimants are entitled to choose in which official language they'd like to proceed.

Handfield says his client, who lives in the Montreal area, speaks neither English nor French, but he chose French because his lawyer spoke French.

The Canada Border Services Agency asked for a special hearing in the case because it believed the man might have committed war crimes. If the agency were to establish that was the case, the man would be immediately deported.

The CBSA took a year to compile the 500 pages worth of evidence.

However, Handfield says the document was submitted entirely in English.

"It's up to the agency to collect the information in the language of the proceedings, and to provide it in the claimant's chosen language," Handfield said.

Handfield says it appears the Canada Border Services Agency never bothered to check in which language the claimant had chosen to proceed.

The agency said it would take months to translate the documents, at a cost of as much as $100,000.

In the end, it simply withdrew its request for a hearing to determine if the man had committed war crimes.

The man will now be allowed to proceed with his refugee claim.

