_& 48 pages |

FRIDAY
December 22, 1995

Kk Weekly Real Estate
listings: 33 — 48

@ Remade in the

@ New Plymouth
catches a Breeze: 23

BICBC gives Chinese
a voice:

@ Christmas calendar.23
Bi Crossword...
@ Entertainment...

29
@ Tide Charts._..._._....31
i TV Listinggs.....................20

| SUNDAY \

On the news front:
Santa takes time out
for a portrait.

WEST VANCOUVER

BY

Weather |

Saturday: Mainly cloudy
High 8°C, low 2°C.

" NEWS photo Mike Wakefield

CYCLING ENTHUSIAST John Gosling, watching Westview Interchange traffic, worries that the interchange’s design will not
allow for use by cyclists. Highways ministry officials say wide shoulders will be sufficient for cyclists. See story, page 3.

me

e search order

‘| stalls fraud trial

Judge adjourns NV deportation case

A NORTH Vancouver provincial
court judge has ordered the federal
Citizenship and Immigration
Ministry to search its files thoroughly
after lawyers on both sides of a
Citizenship Act fraud case received
contradictory information concerning
the 1975 deportation of a North
Vancouver man.

By Anna Marie D'Angelo
News Reporter

On Tuesday, a little over one day into the
proceedings, Judge Bill Rodgers adjourned the
trial. It had originally been scheduled to run for
three days.

Siamak Ashrafinia, 44, is being tried on two

charges faid one year ago under the Canadian

Citizenship Act.
The charges allege:
WH that he made a false statement on a citizen-
ship application form on Nov. 23, 1993, by not
disclosing he had been deported from Canada;
the deported man became a Canadian citizen in
November 1994.
@ that he returned to Canada in May 1990 after

being deported without a ministerial permit.

The contents and whereabouts of any gov-
ernment files on Ashrafinia's deportation
became an issue at the trial.

Federal Crown lawyer Jay Straith said he
had requested all documentation concerning
Ashrafinia and was told that Ashrafinia’s file
had been destroyed except for some documen-
tation, including the deportation order, which
had been copied onto microfiche.

Defence lawyer Henry Vlug said “people”
had been very selective in the documentation
available about his client.

Crown lawyer Jay Straith said that it was
his obligation to give Viug all documentation
that he had obtained oa Ashrafinia.

He said he took offence to Vlug’s assertion
that documents were being withheld.

Vlug produced a letter between government
employees stating that deportation files are
never destroyed and a hand search of all files to
1975 may be required to locate the requested
file. An exclamation mark ended the sentence.

Straith said neither he nor RCMP immigra-
tion section officers had seen the memorandum
before Viug produced it in the court room.

"REACHING EVERY. DOOR ON THE.NORTH SHORE SINCE 1969.

Straith said that if Ashrafinia’s deportation
file exists it should be used in the court case.

Ashrafinia was charged under the
Citizenship Act shortly after he was arrested.

He was subsequently charged last
December with two counts of forging pass-
ports and two counts of conspiracy to provide
illegal immigration with false passports.

A preliminary hearing relating to those
charges was scheduled to start last week.

At the trial on Monday, three sign language
interpreters were called in to provide sign Jan-
guage interpretations for Ashrafinia and his
lawyer, who are both deaf.

Canadian Citizenship Officer Theresa
Koburn and federally certified sign language
interpreter Diane Pattison both testified that
Ashrafinia and his wife, who is also deaf,
understood the questions asked on the citizen-
ship application.

Recalled Koburn, “They (the couple's bvo
sons) pleaded with me ... The sons wanted to
go to Disneyland and they wanted their dad to

See Documents page 4
See Court Ban page 3

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