Ottawa — Canadian authorities are considering their options in the case of North Korean dissident whose plea for asylum was rejected by the national refugee board, likely leaving him to face execution for treason if deported to his homeland.
The board has allowed the man's six-year-old son to remain in Canada, because as the son of a dissident he would face persecution. A removal order has been issued for his father, the child's only living parent.
"Whenever any of us as Canadians read stories like that ... our heart breaks for the families involved in these kinds of issues," Immigration Minister Judy Sgro said Wednesday outside the Commons.
"There are several options open in cases like this. I will wait and see what those options are. I can't get any further into it than that. It certainly raises some interesting issues."
Song Dae Ri, a trade official, was posted to North Korea's embassy in Beijing before he defected to Canada with his son and wife in August 2001.
His wife was lured home by her parents before she had a chance to make a refugee claim and in April 2002, was executed in North Korea.
Board member Bonnie Milliner ruled that Mr. Ri would likely be executed for treason if returned home but said he was not "deserving of Canada's protection" because he was complicit in crimes against humanity merely for being a member of Kim Jong Il's government.
She made that ruling despite written assurances from Canada's War Crimes Unit that Mr. Ri was "not a person of interest to them" and that there was no evidence he had committed crimes against humanity.
"While [Mr. Ri] may not have personally committed any atrocities, I believe that on a balance of probabilities he was aware of the North Korean government's excesses ... and waited 10 years [to leave]," she concluded in her September 2003 decision.
"He was a high-level North Korean government official with weighty responsibilities."
In the past seven years, 35 North Koreans have applied for refugee status in Canada and just two have been granted asylum.
