Whig Standard Staff Writer
July 10, 2001
Meanwhile, China, the country to which Lu will be deported if she sets foot outside her sanctuary, is engaging in a massive execution campaign.
More than 7,000 people who have written letters or signed petitions have been unable ot convince the Canadian government to let Lu stay in the country.
Immigration Minister Elinor Caplan has refused those requests. But Canada's Immigration Department has been handing out hundreds of entry permits to ciminals. A report Caplan tabled in the House of Commons in March shows the minister grated 464 permits last year to serious criminals who had served prison sentences of 10 years or more.
PERMITS ISSUED TO CRIMINALS
An additional 1,088 permits were issued to criminals whose sentences were less than 10 years.
Nine permits were granted to suspected terroists or spies.
In total, Caplan gave special entry exemptions to 1,552 people with criminal records. The number includes those who stayed in Canada and those who were merely passing through.
Immigration wants to deport Lu because of her criminal past. Her many supporters say Lu has left that past far behind and is a model Canadian citizen who deserves to continue her new life here.
In 1985, Lu pleaded guilty to bludgeoning her first husband to death with a meat cleaver. She claims she didn't commit the crime, put pleaded guilty - after her first trial ended in a hung jury and the second in a mistrial - because her lawyer persuaded her it was her only option.
After her release from Prison for Women in 1990, after serving just two years of a 10-year sentence, Canada's Immigration Department to Lu she was being deported.
Lu appealed the decision and lost. Immigration made no attempt to execute the deportation order until last November.
The delay, immigration says, is because Lu's travel documents did not arrive from China until then.
On Nov. 22, an appeal to the Federal Court was thrown out. Lu was granted sanctuary by the congregation of Calvary Bible Church. Immigration issued a warrant for her arrest.
Lu immediately appealed to the Immigration and Refugee Board for a new hearing. The board agreed to consider hearing the case, but only if Lu came out of the church.
She didn't and the board tossed out her appeal, ruling that she had abandoned it and chastising her for "flouting" its authority.
AWAITING FEDERAL RULING
Lawyers are now awaiting a Federal Court ruling. They've asked the court to order the immigration board to re-open Lu's case.
Immigration has asked the board not to consider anything Lu has to say unless she comes out of the church.
If she does come out of the church, she is likely to be arrested and sent directly back to China, from where she would have to find a way to reapply for entry to Canada.
Immigration has suggested Lu appeal for status on humanitarian and compassionate grounds, a lengthly, expensive process that her lawyers are reluctant to undertake because at the end of it, Lu will still require the govenment's permission to stay. Either Caplan or the prime minister could grant the same permission today.
Lu wants to stay in Canada with her new husband, Kingston businessman Darryl Gellner.
She also wants to avoid retrial and possible execution, which the Chinese criminal code permits when citizens have been convicted of serious crimes in other countries.
Immigration authorities insist there's no proof Lu will be subjected to retrial. Neither do they have evidence that she won't.
New reports in the last few weeks estimate that 1,100 people have been executed by the Chinese government recently as Beijing, a frontrunner for the 2008 Summer Olympics, wages an indiscriminate war on drugs before the winning Games bidder is announced. If Lu's case is about politics, then the politics are bizarre, to say the least.
LIBERAL TURF
She's holed up in one of the most staunchly Liberal ridings in the country.
Her lawyer is Stephen LeDrew, president of the Liberal Party of Canada.
Peter Milliken, who as Speaker of the House of Commons holds one of the country's most influential political posts, was one of the first Kingstonians Lu met when he visited her in prison. The Kingston and the Islands MP has lobbied on her behalf.