Now China spy hides in Canadian church to avoid deportation
By IANSWednesday, February 3, 2010
TORONTO - Even as Canadian agencies struggle to deport a former KGB agent hiding in a Vancouver church, yet another former spy — for China — has now hidden himself in a Toronto church to evade deportation.
Though law does not stop police from entering religious places, they avoid these places to make arrests.
The latest spy to hide in a religious place to avoid deportation is Gankhuyag Bumuutseren who spied for the Chinese and Mongolians.
He is hiding in Toronto’s St. James Anglican church to evade arrest and thus deportation.
Reports say 41-year-old Bumuutseren - a Mongolian - was hired by China to spy on Chinese dissidents and Falun Gong followers in the US and Mangolia. But he slipped into the church last August just hours before he was to be deported to Mongolia by the Canada Border Services Agency.
“I feel so sorry and so stupid (for spying for China) and I want to apologise and say sorry. I was young and I didn’t know what I was doing,” the spy told the National Post newspaper Tuesday.
He said he spied on exiled Chinese dissidents in Mongolia and the US for eight years. Because of his actions, he said, several Chinese dissidents were forced in his native Mongolia to flee to western countries.
He alleges that he was later tortured in both China and Mongolia, forcing him to flee to Canada.
Pretending to fly to Mexico for a vacation with his family, he sought asylum during a stopover in Toronto.
But having lost his fight to stay on in Canada, the China spy was ordered to be deported last year when he slipped into the church.
He joins former KGB spy Mikhail Lennikov, 49, who has been hiding in the First Lutheran Church in Vancouver since June last year to avoid deportation to Russia.
The former KGB agent, who came to Canada 13 years ago with his family to study at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, was ordered to be deported because of his past association with the KGB.
In 2002, Canada had to deport an Iranian spy under similar circumstances.
Last year, Indian asylum seeker Laibar Singh was deported after hiding more than a year in gurdwaras in the Vancouver area. Police didn’t enter the Sikh shrine for fear of hurting religious sentiments.
