Canada’s Supreme Court ruled Thursday the son of a Russian spy couple who lived clandestine lives in Canada and the United States can keep his Canadian citizenship.
“He’s very happy,” said Toronto-based lawyer Hadayt Nazami, who said his client plans to move to Canada from Russia.“This is a rare case. Even if someone is born in Canada in the future who is a child of spies, we can’t go around using citizenship laws to punish children when they have done nothing wrong,”
Canada, like the U.S., grants citizenship to anyone born within its territory with limited exceptions, such as the children of diplomats. The government argued that Vavilov’s parents were employees or representatives of a foreign government and thus ineligible. But the attorney for Vavilov argued they were not official representatives and that all that matters in this case is their physical birthplace.
“This is ridiculous. Their parents are convicted spies, both of whom assumed identities of deceased legitimate Canadian citizens for the purposes of infiltrating the United States under cover,” said Richard DesLauriers, the FBI agent who oversaw the arrests of the parents, Andrey Bezrukov and Elena Vavilova, in 2010 along with eight other members of the spy ring around the U.S.DesLauriers said in 2010 that Tim may have found out about his parents’ secret life before they were arrested.
“With this victory comes the bitter realization of all the suffering I have had to endure to see my status as an ordinary Canadian restored,” Vavilov said in a statement through his lawyer. “For the better part of a decade, I was forced into exile from Canada. I was forced onto the public stage unwillingly and deprived of my ability to pursue a normal life.”
Why did we allow Maria Butina to return to Russia? We dont punish spies anymore?
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