The false-identity charges against a Canadian woman stranded in Kenya have been dropped, allowing her to return to Canada on Friday, according to the Foreign Affairs Department.

Suaad Haji Mohamud, 31, had been unable to leave Kenya since May when authorities said her lips did not look the way they did in her four-year-old passport photo.

Canadian consular officials called her an impostor, voided her passport and urged Kenyan officials to prosecute her.

But a judge agreed to drop charges, which included using another person’s passport and being in Kenya illegally, against her Friday morning in Nairobi.

Foreign Affairs said in a release that Mohamud was being assisted with her departure, which was scheduled for later Friday.

“There are no impediments to her return to Canada,” a news release from Foreign Affairs said. “Consular officials are assisting with her departure today.”

Mohamud’s Canadian lawyer Raoul Boulakia said he has spoken with a friend in his client’s company who has confirmed she has been released from the courtroom and is headed to the Canadian High Commission in Nairobi to retrieve her travel documents.

Return flight Friday night

Boulakia said she was expected to board a flight at about 7 p.m. local time to return to Toronto and be reunited with her 12-year-old son.

Suaad Haji Mohamud is shown in her Canadian passport photo. (CBC)

Mohamud’s ordeal began when she tried to leave Kenya after a two-week visit with her mother in May.

Officials maintained 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.

It wasn’t until the DNA test confirmed her identity on Monday that Canadian officials began preparing emergency travel documents for her return.

Mohamud’s hearing Friday was initially delayed because a letter from the Canadian High Commission confirming her identity had been misplaced.

After the document was found, the judge made the decision to drop the charges, Foreign Affairs said.

‘Can I just please leave’

Mohamud has declined to comment on the court’s decision, saying she just wants to get home now.

“I’m on my way. Can I just please leave?” she told CBC News.

Boulakia said his client is “absolutely worn out.”

“She is really at her limit,” he said.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has promised the federal government will investigate how the Canada Border Services Agency handled the case.

“Our first priority as a government is obviously to see Ms. Mohamud get on a flight back to Canada,” Harper said in a statement on Friday. “This is what the government is currently doing.”

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