Widow, 74, labelled a terrorist and ordered out of Canada
After her husband was assassinated during midnight mass at a church in Sri Lanka on Christmas Eve 2005, Canada welcomed Sugunanayake Joseph.
Former foreign affairs minister Bill Graham spoke at a memorial service for her husband, Joseph Pararajasingham, a Sri Lankan MP, calling him a “man of peace.” Five years later, the Immigration and Refugee Board has ordered the 74-year-old Toronto grandmother deported, concluding her role as a politician’s wife — supporting her late husband’s career and accompanying him to political events — amounted to membership in a designated terrorist organization.
“My husband was not a terrorist,” Joseph told the Star on Thursday. “I am also not a terrorist. He was an innocent man. A man of the people.”
Joseph was also wounded in the shooting. Shortly afterward, the federal government issued a visitor’s visa so she could flee to safety in Canada, where her son and daughter are citizens. But when she made a refugee claim in 2007, the federal government alleged Joseph was inadmissible because she had been complicit in crimes against humanity and had belonged to a terrorist organization in Sri Lanka.