(OTTAWA) A lawyer has indicated that Canada will not repatriate a Quebec woman detained in Syria with her six children because authorities believe she poses a security risk.
Lawyer Lawrence Greenspon, who has been working to bring the woman home, says he was briefed on the decision recently by Global Affairs Canada.
According to Me Greenspon, the department wrote on June 21 that the woman held “extremist ideological beliefs” that could lead her to act violently, and that the government cannot guarantee that such conduct will not occur.
Me Greenspon considers this excuse to be false and unacceptable, arguing that the government could manage the woman if necessary through the Canadian justice system.
He says the federal decision means the woman must decide whether to send her children to Canada alone or keep them with her in detention in Syria.
The family are among many foreign nationals in Syrian camps run by Kurdish forces who have taken over the war-torn region from the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group.