It once seemed inevitable that Issam Al Yamani would be sent packing. He was ordered deported from Canada 17 years ago for being an important member an outlawed Palestinian terrorist group; Ottawa said the country could neither be a retirement home for former terrorists or allow sleeper cells to fester.
Court challenge after court challenge — most ending in his favour — have kept him here. His latest win came this week with the Federal Court saying Ottawa must reconsider refusing Al Yamani an exemption to stay.
Nobody, not even Al Yamani, denies he was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). His father was one of its founders, he said, and he joined when he turned 18.
The PFLP is a hardline revolutionary group notorious for plane hijackings in the 1960s and 70s — including hijacking three passenger jets in one day. In the 2000s, it turned to suicide bombings and assassinated the first Israeli cabinet minister. In 2014, it claimed responsibility for an attack on a Jerusalem synagogue that killed six.
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