Bartamaha (Ottawa):- The girlfriend of an Ottawa man about to be deported to Somalia because of his criminality says he “doesn’t stand a chance” in a country he hasn’t seen since he was a child.

Erin Carruthers, 26, an Ottawa child and youth worker, has been in a relationship with Abadir Ali for more than three years.

The Somali-born Ali, 27, has been behind bars for much of that time, detained as a danger to the public by Citizenship and Immigration Canada since early 2008.

Immigration officials are now finalizing details to send Ali to Somalia.

Carruthers contends Ali is not a hardcore criminal.

“He is not a bad guy,” she told the Citizen. “In fact, he is very sweet and loving and will often help others. He just never had anyone he could rely on and he did what he knew to survive.”

Carruthers, a mother of two young children, said she became romantically involved with Ali after meeting him in a Tim Hortons coffee shop three-and-a-half years ago.

“He has basically become the father of my children. He doesn’t want to leave us,” Carruthers said. “We’ve been together since my daughter, Dakota, was one month old.”

She desperately wants him to stay in Canada. “He doesn’t stand a chance in Somalia,” Carruthers said.

According to court documents, Ali spent three years in a refugee camp before arriving in Canada with his stepmother in August, 1991 at age 8.

He was granted refugee status one year later.

He clashed with his step-mother, however, and spent time in foster homes.

Last June, a federal immigration official declared Ali a threat to Canadians because of his five adult criminal convictions, two of them for violent assaults.

In February 2001, he beat a roommate with a bottle and stabbed him with a pair scissors. Then, on July 26, 2007, he returned to a Centretown apartment to confront a woman with whom he had argued. He locked the apartment door, court records show, grabbed the woman by the throat and threw her to the floor. The woman, who was legally blind, was kicked and beaten so badly that she had to undergo brain surgery. She also suffered a broken rib and collapsed lung.

The victim was left with permanent memory damage.

Ali pleaded guilty to aggravated assault in January 2008.

“The assault on his last victim is indicative of the dangerousness he poses to the Canadian public at large,” immigration bureaucrat Julie Stock wrote in her inadmissibility report.

There was no evidence, Stock concluded, that Ali could be rehabilitated and ordered him kicked out of the country.

The Federal Court of Canada recently upheld the immigration department’s deportation order against Ali. The only question now is how to safely deliver Ali back to Somalia since much of the country remains embroiled in civil war.

Carruthers described Ali as “sweet and funny and very caring person,” who has never been offered any help in overcoming his drug and alcohol addictions or in developing a life outside of crime.

“No one can change completely on their own,” said Carruthers, who works with special needs children.

“Abadir did not have anyone to support him or to teach him, or to model behaviour, but he has also shown that he is capable of being rehabilitated when given support and love.”

Carruthers said Ali kicked his addiction problem during his current incarceration. What’s more, Carruthers said, she has taught him problem solving and anger management techniques that have allowed him to walk away from several confrontations at the detention centre.

Carruthers said she’s aware of Ali’s criminal record.

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Source:-Ottawa Citizen

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