Feds investigate Canadian's treatment in Kenya

Mohamud gave contradictory statements in Kenya: Ottawa
Last Updated: Monday, September 28, 2009 | 7:09 PM ET

The federal government filed court documents Monday claiming a Canadian woman, stranded in Kenya for three months and now suing Ottawa, gave contradictory statements that led consular officials to believe she was an impostor and not the proper owner of the passport in her possession.

The government says Suaad Hagi Mohamud gave wrong answers and contradictory information in three separate interviews with Canadian officials in Kenya last May, according to court documents filed in Federal Court. The documents were filed in response to a motion for costs by Mohamud's lawyer Raoul Boulakia.

In one interview with the Canadian High Commission in Nairobi, Mohamud indicated she was a student at Humber College and was studying fashion design. But in another interview, she denied it and said she was only thinking about going to school at Seneca College.

The documents allege she lacked knowledge about Toronto, where she had lived for 10 years. She couldn't name Lake Ontario, and even though she took public transit to work, she had trouble explaining the acronym TTC, the Toronto Transit Commission.

She didn't know that the acronym for her Toronto workplace, ATS, stood for Andlauer Transportation Services. She also couldn't name the current or previous prime minister and was unable to describe in any detail how she obtained her driver's licence.

The documents also allege she gave a wrong date for her son's birthday and couldn't provide details on the circumstances or place of his birth.

Mohamud also provided an incorrect date of her marriage, saying first that she was married in 2006, which contradicted the July 4, 1996, date on her immigration application. Mohamud divorced her first husband and married a Kenyan man in December 2007.

The Canadian High Commission officer who conducted the interviews said Mohamud looked different from her passport photo, that she was six or seven centimetres shorter than her driver's licence stated and that her signature wasn't the same.

By the end of the second hour-long interview, the officer suspected he was talking to an impostor, possibly Mohamud's younger sister, according to the documents.

Lawyer dismisses statements
Mohamud's lawyer dismissed the allegations Monday, saying what Ottawa disclosed doesn't tell the whole story.

"If you want to make allegations against people and have them respond, give us all the evidence that the government has," Boulakia said.

Mohamud, a Canadian citizen born in Somalia, and her family are suing the Canadian government in Ontario Superior Court of Justice for $2.6 million in damages. Damages are sought for, among other things, defamation, malicious prosecution and negligent investigation.

Mohamud, 31, was visiting her ailing mother in Kenya and was about to fly back to Toronto on May 21 when officials stopped her in the Nairobi airport, claiming she was not the same person as the woman pictured in her passport.

Airport authorities said her lips did not look as they did in her four-year-old passport photo.

Canadian consular officials called her an impostor, voided her passport and urged Kenyan officials to lay charges against her.

She was charged on May 28 with identity fraud and spent eight days in a Kenyan jail before being released on bail but without documents needed to travel.

Officials maintained that she was not who she claimed to be, even after Mohamud handed over numerous pieces of identification, offered fingerprints and finally demanded that her DNA be tested.

After DNA tests finally proved her identity, the charges were dropped and she was allowed to return to Toronto and be reunited with her 12-year-old son, Mohamed Hussein, on Aug. 15.

Results of a DNA test released Aug. 10 � one that compared Mohamud's genetic makeup with that of her son and ex-husband � showed a 99.9 per cent match between mother and son. The federal government paid the $800 bill for the genetic testing.