Lawyers to appeal deportation order against alleged Basque terror suspect

In ordering Ivan Apaolaza Sancho deported, Immigration and Refugee Board commissioner Louis Dube did reject some federal evidence that appeared to be obtained when another person was tortured.

But Dube ruled that there was more than enough additional evidence, including police warrants and affidavits, showing Sancho has ties to ETA, a Basque separatist group involved in terrorism.

Those documents were sufficient to kick Sancho out of the country, Dube ruled Tuesday in Montreal. Sancho is wanted by Spain in connection with a series of car bombings tied to ETA.

Sancho has been living in Canada since 2001 under false aliases and forged documents and claims he will be tortured if returned to Spain.

Sancho's Montreal-based lawyer, William Sloan, didn't agree with the commissioner's ruling, which excluded some evidence while accepting police versions of the same facts.

"It doesn't make a terrible amount of sense," Sloan said.

In particular, Sloan keyed in on testimony from Ana Belen Egues Gurruchaga, a Basque detainee in Spain, who fingered Sancho during questioning.

Her 2001 testimony was rejected by Dube because it was likely obtained under torture while she was in Spanish police custody following a Madrid car bombing.

Sloan said Gurruchaga filed a criminal complaint of torture not long after she was released.

Sloan argues that roughly the same information provided by Gurruchaga was used in the police warrants.

"I am shocked that the tribunal could find that the only evidence against me was obtained under torture, while at the same time concluding that the Spanish allegations, which are based on that same evidence, are somehow valid," Sancho said in a statement released by his supporters.

"This decision makes a mockery of the prohibition against the use of evidence obtained under torture."

Sancho admits to being part of the Basque nationalist movement but has denied ever supporting ETA.

Sancho has been held since last June in a wing of the Riviere-des-Prairies detention centre in northeast Montreal, a jail generally reserved for high-risk criminals. He was ordered Tuesday to stay there for another 30 days until his next detention review.

His legal team is preparing to go to Federal Court to appeal the deportation.

Sloan says he also intends to go to Quebec Superior Court to fight Sancho's detention.

Sancho's alleged terrorism link means he would have a difficult time claiming refugee status. He'll also face a different set of rules when undergoing a risk assessment before deportation, Sloan said.

"Likely what he'll face if he's returned to Spain is incommunicado detention, perhaps torture," Sloan said.

Sloan referred to Sancho's deportation process as a "disguised extradition" that uses a warrant as the main piece of evidence. Unlike an extradition, authorities are under no obligation to provide actual evidence to back up the allegations in the document, he said.

"You do have to present evidence (at an extradition)," Sloan said.

Sancho lived mainly in the Vancouver area, rooming initially with Victor Tejedor Bilbao, 51, another alleged Basque terrorist living illegally in Canada who has also been ordered deported.

Sancho moved to Montreal in late 2006 and was arrested on a Quebec City ferry by the RCMP last summer.