I previously discussed Henry “Slasher” Morgenthaler, recipient of the Order of Canada, and the great feminist cause celèbre, Karla Homulka, who kidnapped, raped, killed her sister and two other schoolgirls.
Well, at least they were Canadian citizens, so it’s understandable that many Canadians respect and sympathize with them so much.
But I wonder what it takes to be deported from Canada? Do Canadians discriminate against foreign slayers?
I’m happy to report that Canadians are just as tolerant of foreign killers as they are of their own bloodstained citizens.
Consider the case of confessed killer, Lucy Lu (formerly Zhao, Kuei Kuan).
Lucy Lu, with two of her supporters, Hassan Youssaff (Canadian Labour Congress Executive Vice-president) and Peter “Unions in Cuba are independent…Economic terrorism is imposed on the Cuban people” Boyle (Kingston & District Labour Council President)
She went to Canada from The “People’s Republic” of China in 1984.
She smashed her husband’s skull in 14 times with a meat cleaver while he was sleeping. (I can’t find her husband’s name in any news reports. Apparently he’s only a bit player in this drama.) Said she did it because he wanted to have sex with her and she wasn’t into, so he wanted a divorce, and she wasn’t keen on going back to Red China, which she thought would happen if she got a divorce, and she told a co-worker that she wished her husband were dead. Now, I myself wouldn’t want to have sex with him, or go to Commie China, but then, I didn’t marry the guy, and I’m not from that particular den of corruption. Later she claimed that she never said any of these things; they were all just misunderstandings because she speaks the very rare and not widely spoken Cantonese dialect, and can’t speak a word of her country’s official language that is the main form of communication in schools and the media. She later claimed that her nameless husband was just fine with a no-sex marriage, since they had agreed to have no sex until two years after the wedding.
After killing him, she dressed her husband’s body, dragged it outside, and tried to hide it in a snowbank. (Perhaps she didn’t realize that the snow sometimes melts in Canada.) He then bled and froze to death.
Blood stains were found under the floorboards in their bedroom, in the stairwell, on a mop, and on a blanket that had been hidden in the basement.
Interrogating police treated her like a piece of meat by asking her to remove her jacket!
The horror of the ordeal was that in their unfamiliarity with her culture, police forced her to take off her jacket. In Chinese custom, she said, taking off one’s jacket is comparable to removing all one’s clothing. “It was so embarrassing,” she said. “In China you do not take off your clothes in front of people. Here, I was supposed to do it in front of men.”
She was rdered to pay an exorbitant $500 bond, but then just let go on a promise to appear for trial, since she had no cash.
She was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Served a grand 2½ years.
Ordered to be deported in 2000.
Became a Christian and took “refuge” in “Calvary Bible Church” in Kingston, Ontario, in November, 2000.
“She plans to stay inside the church. She knows she’ll be arrested if she went outside. … Zhao wants to get on with with her life. … She wants to have the matter resolved.”
As proof of her resolve to have the matter resolved, she ignored her deportation order and declined to show up for her subsequent deportation hearing.
It’s only fair to point out that the killer had many admirers, because she was a babysitter and took care of the elderly. And she claims that she only pleaded guilty because she couldn’t speak English at the time of her confession (only five short years after arriving in Canada; and apparently there isn’t a single Chinese translator in the entire Ontario court system…) and she had been assured “by someone in the legal field” that if she pleaded guilty she wouldn’t be deported.
I’m not sure why she couldn’t have simply explained all this to an understanding and sympathetic Chinese judge. After all, the PRC is the kind of place where murder suspects aren’t even expected to remove their jackets for inspection.
Anyway, her deportation appeal was rejected, but the very next day she was granted leave to remain in her majesty’s dominions by the immigration minister, Denis Coderre, Liberal, on April Fool’ Day, after a high profile campaign on her behalf by Canada’s Great and Good, the Canadian Union of Public Employees, the Canadian Auto Workers, the Union of National Defence Employees and a lawyer in Ireland. [Interestingly, Coderre's predecessor, Ms Caplan banned anyone convicted of domestic violence -- e.g. skull bludgeoning with cleaver -- from even being able to sponsor immigrants. Perhaps that has nothing to do with this case...]
It’s a good thing she received refuge in a Church, which is a practice well-respected by those who normally pull their hair out over alleged breaches of the alleged wall between Church and State.
The concept of Refuge dates back to Jewish cities of refuge where accused criminals could remain while awaiting trial, or could reside in after being found not guilty, assured of protection from private retribution at the the hands of family members of those who they had been accused of killing.
Also, in medieval Europe it was understood that accused criminals could seek refuge in the grounds of an Established Church, where they would then be subject to the will of the Ecclesiastical Courts.
News reports about Ms Lu were unclear as to whether or not Kingston has been designated as an official Canadian City of Holy Refuge, or if “Calvary Bible Church” is Canada’s Established Church and has its own Ecclesiastical Justice System and Holy Prisons.
2 Comments
June 27, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Was Steven Truscott guilty? He too, was convicted of murder. Turns out he didn’t do what the authorities said he did. What about Rubin Carter? Oops! another mistake. Your article is full of contempt and bitterness. What an outrage! This murderer – and a foreigner too – is allowed to live and remain among us! Whatever would your Jesus think about that! Would he be screaming for her deportation as well? Yet it seems that you credit the judiciary with infallibility. Any artifice devised by humans is subject to error. So, unless your God made the judiciary, it too, can make mistakes. Perhaps Lu’s conviction was one, unless you know something with Cartesian certainty the rest of us do not. If you don’t, then dislike it though you may, yours is just another story based on what you believe and not what you know to be the case. In this context, that makes it no more credible than stories about Lu’s innocence. Why should these not be entertained?
June 29, 2009 at 10:35 pm
You’re not logical. A court doesn’t determine truth. The court determined her guilt. Immigration decisions are based on court rulings.