Thaindian News

Vancouver, March 7 (IANS) The Canadian Supreme Court Friday ordered an Indian immigrant to be deported after his conviction for killing an elderly white woman in Vancouver in 2000.
Sukhvir Singh Khosa was convicted of killing 51-year-old Irene Thorpe in a deadly car race with a fellow Indian in Vancouver nine years ago. The woman was out on an evening stroll when she was mowed down by Khosa’s car.

During the trial, the court was told that he was driving at 120 km in the 50-km speed zone in competition with Bhahadur Singh Bhalru. Bhalru was deported to India in 2005.

Denying that he was street racing, Khosa maintained he was only driving fast and lost control of his vehicle, killing Thorpe. After the trial, he was ordered to undergo a two-year house arrest, and then face the Immigration Board which would decide his fate.

Under Canadian immigration laws, a non-citizen can be deported for a criminal offence carrying sentence up to 10 years. Khosa, who came to Canada with his parents as a teenager, was still a permanent resident of Canada at the time of the crime.

On his completion of two-year house arrest, Khosa was ordered deported to India by the immigration board as he insisted that he was not street racing ( a serious offence in Canada) but only driving fast when he hit the victim.

Khosa, who is father of two Canadian-born children, challenged the immigration board’s deportation order in the federal court of appeal on humanitarian grounds.

The court of appeal ruled in his favour, overturning his deportation order. But the immigration board challenged the matter in the Supreme Court of Canada which in its 7-1 ruling Friday restored the board’s deportation order against Khosa.

In its ruling, the apex court said the there was reason for the appeal court to stay the board’s deportation order.