Congolese man who worked for notorious intelligence agency stayed in Canada for 8 years after refugee claim

A federal court in Quebec refused to halt the deportation of a Congolese man who spent more than eight years in Canada while his failed refugee application worked its way through the appeal system despite his ties to the African nation’s notorious intelligence agency.

Godefroid Masusu Gupa worked for the Agence nationale de renseignement (ANR), a counter-espionage group in the Democratic Republic of Congo with a track record of human rights abuses, between 1987 and 2017. He rose through the ranks over the decades, becoming the “second assistant director of the counter-espionage division” as the organization established a reputation for widespread human rights violations.

“It is not in dispute that during this period, the ANR committed arbitrary arrests, extrajudicial executions and torture, which amounted to crimes against humanity,” Justice Sébastien Grammond said in a ruling published in January.

Gupa filed his Basis of Claim (BOC) requesting refugee status in Canada in December 2017, shortly after arriving in Montreal for an official trip as an ANR representative. His application was rejected by the Refugee Protection Division. He challenged the ruling before the Refugee Appeal Division, but lost in November 2021. Despite the setbacks, Gupa persisted with a judicial review of the previous rulings. In February 2023, the federal court defended the earlier judgments, but Gupa’s legal battle did not end there.

The latest decision in his case comes as the Conservative party has raised concerns about benefits offered to refugee applicants.

“Under the Liberals, the Interim Federal Health Program (IFHP), the program that provides benefits to asylum claimants, has morphed well beyond its initial intent of providing care to a small number of legitimate refugees who are fleeing to Canada from war zones into a massive boondoggle that provides care to bogus asylum claimants,” Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel Garner said as she tabled a motion in late February to curb access to these benefits.

The cost of the program has grown from $226 million in 2019 to $1 billion in 2025. It is expected to increase to over $1.5 billion by 2030.

Gupa’s lawyer was not able to say if his client received any health or other benefits while he was in Canada.

Immigration lawyer Sergio Karas, who was not involved in Gupa’s case, took aim at the length of Gupa’s proceedings — eight years — pointing to it as evidence of the “slow, grinding process (which) allows unsavoury individuals to exploit the system with a multiplicity of applications and reviews.”

Karas also called the case “timely” given the backdrop of the Iran conflict.

“Canada may soon be the target of individuals connected to the Iranian regime who may seek refugee status,” Karas said in an email. “Immigration legislation must be reformed urgently to prevent them from entering the country or making refugee claims.”

According to the most recent ruling, in the final two years of his tenure in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) , Gupa had a falling out with ANR’s leadership. During this time, he alleges he was assaulted, experienced threats to his life and his wife’s, and was detained. In October 2017, he arrived in Canada as part of a Congolese delegation attending a conference and requested refugee protection. “He asserted that the ANR is actively looking for him in the DRC and that his wife was twice kidnapped, extorted and sexually assaulted in retaliation for his desertion,” Grammond wrote.

However, both the Refugee Protection Division and Refugee Appeal Division had dismissed Gupa’s case, arguing there was credible evidence he made “a knowing, voluntary and significant contribution to the ANR’s crimes against humanity.” Gupa subsequently sought a pre-removal risk assessment (PRRA) application for individuals who feel their lives are in jeopardy and face deportation.

“This ensures that a person will not be removed from Canada where this would result in a breach of sections 7 and 12 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, even though the moral opprobrium flowing from a knowing, voluntary and significant contribution to crimes against humanity would weigh heavily in favour of removal,” Grammond wrote.

Among the assessment’s findings was that Gupa left the Democratic Republic of Congo “six times … without claiming asylum” during his final two years with the ANR, when he alleges his life was under threat. While Grammond acknowledged “serious issues” with the assessment, such as the officer’s rejection of “certain pieces of evidence for apparently trivial reasons,” he felt Gupa’s defence was not compelling enough to offset the risk to the public interest.

“Indeed, given his long-time employment with the ANR, Mr. Gupa has himself played a significant role in those abuses,” Grammond argued. “In my view, the balance favours removal.”

Gupa’s attorney Kareem Ibrahim told National Post. “The applicant did not even have the benefit of an oral hearing to parse through some of the evidentiary issues that were noted by the officer in the PRRA decision.”

Ibrahim called PRRA decisions “highly procedurally unfair” and compared them to the “refugee claim process adjudicated by the Immigration and Refugee Board,” whose “decisions are extremely transparent.”

Ibrahim could not confirm whether Gupa had participated in any crimes against humanity, as Canadian immigration officials have alleged, but stated that his firm only assisted Gupa “in this latest decision” and that “no other steps (are) being taken by my office” at this time. He said his client should not be accused of taking advantage of Canada’s refugee system “because his request for protection was made immediately upon arrival in Canada, more or less.”

He confirmed that Gupa was able to stay in the country legally throughout his refugee appeal process, which stretched out over several years.

Gupa has now been deported from Canada.

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