An Ottawa mother expects good news when her autistic son meets with the Canadian High Commission in Kenya this week after being trapped there for several years because Canada wouldn’t give him a passport.

Anab Issa said years of working to get her 25-year-old autistic son, Abdihakim Mohamed, back to Canada now seems to be over.

“I called him today (Saturday). He’s okay. They (High Commission) called him and said they want to talk. I think they want to solve the problem,” said Issa, a cleaner at Carleton University. The meeting is to happen Monday or Tuesday she said.

Issa’s ordeal began in 2006, two years after she took her son to Somalia to be with his grandmother on the advice of his doctor, who thought he’d adapt better to life there.

When Issa returned to Canada she accidentally had Mohamed’s passport in her purse and it was confiscated by border guards in Toronto upon arrival.

When his grandmother got sick in 2006 Issa decided to bring him home.

She applied for a new passport for Mohamed but was denied.

She even went to Nairobi to seek a passport with her son.

Canadian officials still wouldn’t give her one.

“They told me he’s not my son. I told him he’s my son,” she said. “I didn’t get any help from the government here.”

Since then she’s jumped hurdle after hurdle only to find another one has been put up every time she does what she’s been asked to do, said Ahmed Hussen, national president of the Canadian-Somali Congress in Ottawa.

“(Canadian officials) basically asked for documents for the last number of years. Whenever she has complied with a condition they’ve created a new condition,” said Hussen. “Three years to settle a passport dispute, to me, is unacceptable.”

Hussen said it shouldn’t come as a surprise that all of “sudden” there’s movement on the Mohamed case considering what’s happened this week with Suaad Hagi Mohamud.

Mohamud, 31, arrived in Toronto last weekend after being trapped in Kenya for three months because Canadian officials denied her identity.

“Suaad Hagi Mohamud has certainly helped this young man’s case. This is not a coincidence that this case started moving,” he said.

Last week foreign affairs said Passport Canada was ready to issue travel documents for Mohamed once they received an application.

On Saturday, a foreign affairs spokesman couldn’t provide an update.

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Recent high-profile cases of Canadians trapped abroad:

• Suaad Hagi Mohamud arrived in Canada last week after being stuck in Kenya for three months because officials said she didn’t look like the photo in her passport.
• Abousfian Abdelrazik returned to Montreal in June, after being stranded in Sudan for six years because he was placed on a UN no-fly list.
• Brenda Martin returned to Canada in May 2008, after spending two years in a Mexican jail, and was granted parole within days.
• Pavel Kulisek of Vancouver has been stuck in a Mexican jail since March 2008, facing drug trafficking and organized crime charges. His wife has started a website — www.pavelkulisek.com — to campaign for his release.
• Maher Arar, Syrian-born, was returning to Canada from vacation when he was detained by U.S. immigration officers in 2002 as he switched planes at Kennedy International Airport. The Ottawa resident was then deported to Syria where he was tortured. He was released a year later and returned to Canada, where he was awarded $10.5 million compensation from the federal government for his ordeal.

Source: ottawasun

By KENNETH JACKSON, Sun Media

Photo: Anab Issa holds a photo of her son, Abdihakim Mohamed, who is trapped in Kenya because Canada has refused to issue him a passport. (JONATHAN TAILLEFER/Sun Media)

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