Geisha Kow­lessar

Mem­bers of the con­tro­ver­sial Or­tho­dox Jew­ish sect Lev Tahor have ap­pealed an or­der by the T&T Gov­ern­ment to have them de­port­ed back to Cana­da.In con­firm­ing this yes­ter­day, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan said the group made the ap­peal to Chief Im­mi­gra­tion Of­fi­cer Ger­ry Downes in ac­cor­dance with Sec­tion 21 (2) of the Im­mi­gra­tion Act.

"This is an in­ter­est­ing and im­por­tant de­vel­op­ment and I have no doubt the chief im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cer would deal with the mat­ter ex­pe­di­tious­ly to chal­lenge this de­ci­sion and to have them re­turn to Cana­da," Ram­lo­gan said.On when a de­ci­sion would be made by Downes, Ram­lo­gan said that was up to Downes, but said he ex­pect­ed a de­ci­sion with­in the short­est pos­si­ble time.

The group, three adults and six chil­dren, ar­rived at the Pi­ar­co Air­port on Mon­day. The re­mained un­der pro­tec­tive cus­tody at the Pi­ar­co Ho­tel up to yes­ter­day, with of­fi­cials not al­low­ing them free ac­cess to the out­side world.Ram­lo­gan said the chil­dren were the sub­ject of a child pro­tec­tion or­der in the province of Que­bec and the Gov­ern­ment was li­ais­ing with its Cana­di­an coun­ter­parts to fa­cil­i­tate their swift re­turn.

"We have been li­ais­ing with the Cana­di­an au­thor­i­ties through the Cen­tral Au­thor­i­ty and the Civ­il Child Ab­duc­tion Au­thor­i­ty in the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al with a view to have the group re­turned to Cana­da."There is a child pro­tec­tion or­der is­sued by a com­pe­tent court in Que­bec with re­gard to the cus­tody, care and con­trol of the chil­dren which ap­peared to have been vi­o­lat­ed, he said."And there­fore we are com­mit­ted to en­sur­ing the rule of law is up­held," Ram­lo­gan said.

He said Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith was do­ing all that was pos­si­ble to en­sure the group is com­fort­able and prop­er­ly tak­en care of while in Trinidad.The group has re­quest­ed pas­sage to Guatemala, and im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cials said they be­lieved they end­ed up in Trinidad by mis­take be­cause they missed their flight to Mex­i­co.

A re­port in the Toron­to Star said mem­bers of the sect have been un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion by Que­bec po­lice and child pro­tec­tion au­thor­i­ties for years. It added child pro­tec­tion au­thor­i­ties had doc­u­ment­ed what they said was ev­i­dence of phys­i­cal abuse, poor men­tal and phys­i­cal health and a sub­stan­dard ed­u­ca­tion regime. The sect has de­nied all al­le­ga­tions of abuse.