TORONTO (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 22nd October, 2020) Canada's Immigration and Refugee board (IRB) denied former Nazi Helmut Oberlander's bid to have the deportation proceedings against him dismissed, an IRB ruling released on Wednesday said.
"The application to dismiss the Minister [of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness's] allegations of inadmissibility is denied," an IRB adjudicator ruled. "I find that the [Immigration Division] does have jurisdiction to issue a deportation order if Mr. Oberlander is found to be inadmissible on the grounds alleged."
Oberlander's defense team argued that the Immigration Division did not have jurisdiction in this case and challenged the admissibility of the proceedings, citing an abuse of process.
The IRB adjudicator ruled the Immigration Division does have jurisdiction in the case because the status of Canadian domicile Oberlander claimed no longer exists and even if it did, the false statements he made upon entering Canada would have made him eligible for deportation.
The IRB adjudicator also concluded that there was no abuse of process, saying the process was prolonged because Oberlander repeatedly attempted to uphold his Canadian citizenship and due to inaction on the part of the Federal authorities.
In addition, the IRB adjudicator allowed a number of procedural accommodations, including attending hearings via teleconference and appointing Oberlander's daughter as his designated representative due to his numerous ailments.
The case can now proceed to admissibility hearings, where the IRB's Immigration Division will determine whether Oberlander is inadmissible and should be deported from Canada, IRB spokesperson Anna Pape told Sputnik.
The next set of hearing has not been scheduled.
On April 9, Russian investigators announced that the 96-year-old Oberlander was complicit in the World War II shooting of 27,000 people in Russia's Rostov region.
Additionally, in February, Russia's Investigative Committee sent a request to the Canadian authorities to provide legal materials related to the investigation into Oberlander's role in the massacre of orphans in the Russian city of Yeysk during World War II.
The Investigative Committee is trying to assess Oberlander's role in the crime against humanity, which does not have a statute of limitations in accordance with the 1945 Charter of the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg.
The Canadian government began trying to strip Ukrainian-born Oberlander of his Canadian citizenship in 1995, citing that he failed to disclose his links to death squads. After a lengthly legal battle, Oberlander was stripped of his citizenship for the fourth time in 2017 and Canada's Supreme Court issued a ruling last December that blocked any possibility for Oberlander to appeal this decision.
