[keiferski]

The courts have designated the man “the Unknown Person” and he has been behind bars for more than six years because officials don’t know who he is. This puts him in a bizarre state of limbo: Until Canadian officials know his identity and nationality, they cannot deport him; until they can deport him, they don’t want to release him.

The headline is clickbait and I have flagged it. He was arrested for a crime and refuses to identify himself, isn’t a Canadian citizen, and the police haven’t had luck figuring out his identity. They can’t deport him and they can’t just release him if he arrived illegally. This is all in the article.

I don’t know what else one could expect the police to do. It’s certainly an odd Kafkesque situation, but he doesn’t seem to want to get out of it.

[pbhjpbhj]

The bit I don't understand is why they didn't charge him? It says he was arrested for fraud - the "black banknote" scam - and that they ended his trial before it concluded in order to deport him.

Why not conclude the trial, and any other legal processes (eg charge with impersonation, etc.), hand down a sentence, if there's more time to serve have him serve it. Then give him leave to remain or deport to the country he arrived from (I think that's the allowed routine in international law)?

[stanski]

They didn't proceed with the trial because either way he would be deported. Simple as that.

If they had convicted him, he'd be deported.

If they couldn't convict him, he'd be deported still (he's not legally allowed to stay in Canada).

So what's the point of proceeding with the trial?

The issue here is not even whether he's guilty. It's not knowing where he's from because he'd rather stay in prison in Canada then go back to Cameroon. Meanwhile acting like there's a big injustice perpetrated against him. He might change his mind at some point but then again maybe not. Either way it's a ridiculous bind for authorities.

[pbhjpbhj]

>he's not legally allowed to stay in Canada //

Doesn't that mean he has had a (summary) conviction, eg for outstaying a visa?

Do other countries have an established process that would resolve this situation?

[nraynaud]

did you read the article? it's explained in it.

[glitchc]

I don’t think it’s misreported. As the article states, the prosecutor did stay the charges so that he could be deported. Right now he’s being held for non-cooperation by the CBSA for refusing to identify himself during the deportation hearing. His current documents are forgeries.

It is a rather interesting case, but I suspect like the other case of Mr. Walker, the CBSA will collect enough information to identify him and deport him to Cameroon. That seems to be the likely country of origin and a good starting point for further investigation.

[keiferski]

I meant that the title implies that he was imprisoned for six years purely because he didn’t identify himself. The reality is more complex and a better headline would be something like “Man with forged passport refuses to identify himself, even after being held in prison for six years, initially from an unrelated fraud charge.”

[aaron695]

Australia had a legal resident who was unlawfully detained for 10 months.

She was mentally ill so could not identify herself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelia_Rau

It too was Kafkesque

We have no idea if this prisoner is mentally ill (I'd bet yes) and how that impacted the crime, it involved 4 people, he might have been used.

Just societies don't lock people up because they are unknown or hard.