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A man who led an eccentric life of spying and espionage, skulking in the shadows as an agent and then a double agent for both Saddam Hussein and Israel’s Mossad, has been given a new chance at remaining in Canada, where he is trying to avoid coming face-to-face with those he betrayed.

Hussein Ali Sumaida, 53, has won yet another court appeal, one of many legal wins and losses that have so far ended in a stalemate spanning 28 years.

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Canada’s justice and immigration systems have not been able to reconcile the Sumaida conundrum: his years of cloak-and-dagger put him in danger of torture if he is deported to the Middle East, but also make him ineligible to remain in Canada because of concern his activities amounted to crimes against humanity.

A world of privilege

Sumaida grew up in a world of privilege; his father was a high-ranking diplomat in Iraq during the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. After Sumaida left to attend university in England in the 1980s, his youthful rebellion meant joining a dissident group actively opposing Hussein’s regime.