Ebrahim Toure’s first steps as a free man in five-and-a-half years were hesitant. He paused briefly outside the back gates of the Immigration Holding Centre, clutching a garbage bag of his belongings.

Then the four friends who came to pick him up cheered and ran to him from across the parking lot. Gebere Mageraga reached Toure first, wrapping him in a bear hug. Toure grinned. “I’m just so happy,” he said.

The 47-year-old failed refugee claimant was arrested by the Canada Border Services Agency on Feb. 23, 2013. He was jailed indefinitely because immigration authorities believed he would not show up for his deportation if it was ever arranged. In the end, the CBSA conceded what Toure’s lawyers had argued for years — that they could not deport him.

Jared Will, Toure’s lawyer, said he was relieved his client was released, but the outcome is bittersweet. “It’s something that should have happened a very long time ago.”

Nothing about the case, other than the length of time Toure has spent behind bars, has substantially changed over the past few years.

“The reason he has been released is because the (Immigration and Refugee Board) finally acknowledged there is no prospect of deporting him,” Will said. “But it’s clear that there has never really been a prospect of deporting him.”

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Caged by Canada | Part 1: Four years lost

Caged by Canada | Part 2: Canada’s longest case

Caged by Canada | Part 3: The damning data

Toure, who was profiled as part of the Star’s investigation into Canada’s immigration detention system, believes he was born in The Gambia and may also have a right to citizenship in Guinea, where he spent much of his childhood. But he can’t prove his claim to either country, and neither would issue him travel documents.

The CBSA accused him of intentionally thwarting their efforts to remove him, but he insisted he had given them all the information he had. “They wasted a lot of my life,” Toure said.

Toure, who came to Canada with a fraudulent passport and then applied for refugee status in his own name, was never charged or convicted of a crime in Canada, and he was not considered a danger to the public, but he spent the first four-and-a-half years of his detention in a maximum-security jail in Lindsay, Ont. He was classified as a “high-risk” detainee by the CBSA based on a 2005 conviction for selling pirated DVDs in Atlanta, for which he served no jail time.

The Star’s 2017 investigation found that many long-term immigration detainees were being indefinitely warehoused in maximum-security jails and the quasi-judicial hearings that determined their fates were procedurally unfair and stacked against them. Toure had a total of 69 hearings before the Immigration and Refugee Board.

Since then the CBSA has significantly reduced its number of long-term detainees (those jailed for more than 90 days) and the number of detainees it sends to maximum-security jails. The Immigration and Refugee Board, meanwhile, has promised major reforms following a scathing independent audit of its hearings.

Late Friday evening, the CBSA responded to questions sent by the Star on Thursday afternoon regarding Toure’s case. “Given our review of the case at this time the CBSA was comfortable making a joint release submission,” spokesperson Derek Lawrence said in an emailed statement. He did not answer specific questions about why the CBSA’s position had changed.

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Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale and CBSA president John Ossowski did not respond to interview requests.

Toure says his mental health deteriorated during his detention. A psychiatrist testified last year that Toure’s “serious problems” included hallucinations and voices in his head.

Last October, a Superior Court judge ruled Toure’s detention in maximum-security jail was “cruel and unusual” and ordered him transferred to the less restrictive Immigration Holding Centre on Rexdale Blvd. in Toronto. But Justice Alfred O’Marra said the government still had a right to detain Toure on the basis of what government lawyers described at the time as a “pending” interview with Gambian authorities. Nearly a year later the interview has yet to occur and recent correspondence between the CBSA and Gambian officials — filed as evidence with the Immigration and Refugee Board — showed no discernible progress.

Toure’s and other high-profile cases have led to increased calls for Canada to set a maximum length of time people can be held in immigration detention. Many countries have limits ranging from 60 days to 18 months, and human rights groups and detainee advocates have called on Canada to follow suit. Like Canada, the U.S., U.K. and Australia have no limit.

Toure’s final detention review hearing was Thursday afternoon, when Immigration and Refugee Board member Harry Adamidis said he still believed on a balance of probabilities that Toure is unlikely to appear for his removal if it is ever arranged. But since the CBSA is “no longer confident” it can obtain a travel document within a reasonable time frame, Toure’s “flight risk” concerns can be offset by the release plan jointly submitted by Toure’s lawyers and the CBSA.

Three sureties, all of whom had been previously rejected by the tribunal or opposed by the CBSA, were accepted this time. Together they put forward a combined $26,000 in cash and performance bonds to secure Toure’s release.

Toure, who can apply for a work permit, must live with one of his sureties, report every two weeks to the CBSA, make monthly calls to the Gambian Embassy in Washington, co-operate with any efforts to obtain a travel document and “appear whenever and wherever the CBSA orders you to appear,” Adamidis said. The conditions could be revised in the future by the CBSA.

Toure, who appeared at Thursday’s hearing via video, barely reacted when Adamidis ordered his release. He explained later he was in shock. “I never thought this day was going to happen,” he said.

“I didn’t sleep last night. I stayed up all night,” Toure added Friday. He was worried they would “maybe change their mind or something.”

Toure said staff inside the Immigration Holding Centre delayed his release by about an hour and told him to tell a reporter and photographer from the Star to leave the area. Toure said he refused. “I told them, ‘I can’t do that. That’s between you and them.’”

Asked to comment, the CBSA spokesperson said: “The information you have is not consistent with ours.”

Security staff had previously cautioned the Star reporter and photographer against taking photographs anywhere on the “premises” outside the government building.

Toure said the first thing he was going to do now that he was free was eat fufu and okra soup, a traditional West African dish. “I haven’t had any African food in five-and-a-half years,” he said.

After that, he just wants to relax. “I want to breathe the air, smell the air,” he said.

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