HUNTER: U.S. DOJ cleans house, booting killers and a 'Canadian' terrorist

Article content

The press release from the U.S. Department of Justice was terse. It was not self-congratulatory.

For a Canadian bombarded with daily examples of the insanity of our own justice and immigration systems, it was refreshing, even inspiring.

On second thought, it was depressing to think how staggeringly high the threshold is in Canada to boot arch-criminals, terrorists and their sympathizers.

Appeals can last for years, with ridiculous reasoning for allowing them. Not so in the U.S.

On Friday, the DOJ released a master list of recent criminals and terrorists who have been extradited to face justice in their countries of origin or who have been returned to the U.S.

One of those torpedoed was a Pakistani native and erstwhile Canadian citizen, Tahawwur Hussain Rana, 64. Who, you ask?

Well, Rana is a convicted terrorist.

Now, the U.S. has sent him to India to stand trial on 10 criminal charges stemming from his alleged role in the horrific 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai. That sickening slaughter at the behest of Pakistan and its terrorist proxies claimed the lives of more than 160 people and wounded hundreds more.

Pakistan is distancing itself from its native son and insists that Rana is a Canadian. He never attempted to renew his Pakistani citizenship, they say.

Rana had been a military doctor in his home country’s army, where he met Mumbai attack co-conspirator David Headley, an American heroin trafficker turned hardcore Islamist. Headley and Rana were also convicted of a botched terrorist attack on a Danish newspaper that ran a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad.

Rana arrived in Canada in 1997 (welcome, welcome, welcome!) before decamping to the U.S. Somehow, he managed to obtain citizenship in both countries.

But authorities claim Rana continued to have close ties with terrorists and elements in the Pakistani military.

Given Canada’s acceptance of the near-daily, hate-fuelled anti-Israeli mobs cheering on the Hamas death cult, it’s difficult to imagine this country letting India get its hands on one of the Mumbai massacre’s masterminds. Why, if Rana had stayed here, he might be sitting pretty with a professorship at one of our universities. Maybe he could establish his own NGO to support slaughtering non-believers.

While Rana was the CanCon element, the U.S. listed a slew of other villains who returned to America and were extradited elsewhere.

— Georgian Michail “Commander Butcher” Chkhikvishvili, 21, allegedly plotted a white supremacist-driven mass casualty event in New York City. The feds say he’s the leader of a global hate group, the Maniac Murder Cult. The scheme was to hand out poisoned candy at Christmas. Jews were the primary targets.

— Adrian Alberto Cano Gomez, 45, a Colombian national and suspected member of the radical group Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN), faces charges of narco-terrorism and distributing kilogram quantities of cocaine in Texas.

— Daniel Flores, 49, a Mexican national, was extradited to face charges of first-degree murder for the 1995 killing of two brothers, both U.S. Marines, in Chicago.

There is also a mish-mash of computer crooks, killers, pedophiles, drug smugglers, and gang bangers in the mix. They are all serious criminals. Treated seriously.

We know that Tahawwur Hussain Rana is a homicidal fanatic. We are also aware that if he had cooled his jets in Canada, he could have hit Saturday afternoon celebrity status.

Instead, there is a distinct possibility that Rana will be swinging from the end of a rope.

And no activist Canadian judge can stop it.

bhunter@postmedia.com

@HunterTOSun