US deports Eritrean over robbing Canadian banks to fund rebels

Sept 15, 2005 (SAN FRANCISCO) — An Eritrean restaurant owner suspected of robbing Canadian banks to fund rebels in his homeland decades ago was deported from Los Angeles this week, immigration officials said Thursday.

Officers escorted Berhe Mahrai, 56, to Eritrea on a commercial airline flight and he was repatriated, according to Tammy Wilson of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Mahrai had been arrested at Los Angeles International Airport in February after a routine background check by border protection agents revealed he was the target of an “ICE lookout,” Wilson said in a written release.

Canadian authorities advised their US counterparts that Mahrai was a bank robber whose motive appeared to be supporting fellow members of the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front, a rebel group active during the 1970s and 1980s.

Eritrea won its prolonged fight for independence from Ethiopia in 1993. The Liberation Front became the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice, the ruling party in Eritrea.

Mahrai, who operated two liquor stores and an Ethiopian restaurant in Los Angeles, had immigrated legally to the United States in the early 1970s.

Mahrai and another Ethiopian national robbed two banks in Canada in 1974, according to ICE. Mahrai was convicted of the heists and sentenced to prison in Canada, Wilson said.

Mahrai was deported to Ethiopia in 1976, and is believed to have returned to the United States about five years later, according to ICE.

Mahrai applied for US citizenship, but it was denied in 2002 because of his criminal history, Wilson said.

ICE subsequently linked Mahrai to his Canadian convictions and also learned he was wanted by local police who suspected he had assaulted someone with a deadly weapon, according to officials.

“The lesson in this is that those who fail to reveal their true past can expect to experience the full weight of the law,” said John Salter, Chief Counsel for ICE in Los Angeles.

(AFP/ST)