Albanian man who used fake passport for refugee claim gets a shot at returning to Canada to escape 'blood feud'

An Albanian man involved in a “blood feud” who served 26 months in an Italian prison for uttering threats, kidnapping, robbery and weapon possession, then came to Canada as a refugee claimant using a fake Italian passport, has won a shot at returning to this country.

“The serious crimes Pjeter Pjetrushi committed before coming to Canada rendered him inadmissible to Canada and ineligible for refugee protection,” Federal Court Justice Nicholas McHaffie wrote in a recent decision out of Ottawa.

The court heard Pjetrushi’s “family has been in a blood feud (in Albania) with a family named Tafili since 2000, after Mr. Pjetrushi’s cousin, a police chief, killed a member of the Tafili family during a forcible arrest. About a year later, the dead man’s son, named Admir, tried to kill Mr. Pjetrushi’s cousin but failed. Admir was arrested, convicted, and imprisoned. Other members of the Tafili family later tried to kidnap the cousin’s sons from their schoolyard.”

Pjetrushi left Albania in 2006 “as a minor, to join two of his brothers in Italy,” said the decision.

“He began working in Italy shortly thereafter. In early 2009, when Mr. Pjetrushi was 18 years old, his employer replaced him while he was away visiting his mother in Albania and refused to pay Mr. Pjetrushi the wages he was owed. Mr. Pjetrushi responded by waiting for the employer at his factory, grabbing him, threatening him with a knife, and forcing him to open his safety deposit box to give him money.”

Pjetrushi pleaded guilty and was convicted by an Italian court in February 2009.

“Upon his release from prison in 2011, Mr. Pjetrushi met with his victim and made peace with him. Italian immigration authorities ordered him to leave Italy and he returned to Albania.”

While Pjetrushi was behind bars in Italy, “Admir escaped from police custody in Albania and was not found,” said the decision.

Shortly after Pjetrushi got out of prison, two of his cousins in Albania — brothers of the targeted police chief — were murdered, said the decision.

“Admir took responsibility and was again arrested. Feeling threatened by the blood feud, Mr. Pjetrushi left Albania again in October 2011, using a fraudulent Greek passport to travel to Italy before being caught trying to enter France.”

Pjetrushi was convicted again in Italy for using and manufacturing the fake identification, said the decision. “He received a conditional sentence of five months and 10 days imprisonment before again returning to Albania.”

Pjetrushi fled Albania again in June 2012, but he was caught in Italy with fake identification and sent home.

“After hiding at his parents’ home for about two years, Mr. Pjetrushi again left Albania and returned to Italy, where he paid a smuggler to acquire a false Italian passport. He travelled to Canada in January 2015 and made a refugee claim in March 2015.”

He remained in Canada until August 2023 and worked without a permit in his own renovation and construction business, said the decision.

Pjetrushi has already been deported to Albania, “where he currently resides,” said the decision.

Pjetrushi filed an application with Immigration Minister Lena Diab “hoping to satisfy” her “that he had been rehabilitated,” said the May 26 decision.

“A delegate of the minister, relying on a recommendation from an immigration officer, refused that application. Mr. Pjetrushi now seeks judicial review of that refusal,” it said.

“He argues the delegate unreasonably focused on the nature of the crimes leading to his inadmissibility and his use of false identification documents, and failed to reasonably assess the evidence he presented to show he did not pose a forward-looking risk of reoffending.”

Pjetrushi “accepted that his earlier crimes were serious, but contended that they were the actions of an immature 18-year-old,” said the decision. “In supplementary submissions filed in June 2024, he asserted that, as a 34-year-old man who had been free of criminal activity for 12 years, it was highly unlikely that he would reoffend. In his affidavit filed in support of the application, Mr. Pjetrushi expressed his regret regarding his 2009 crimes, stating he had done them when he was young and immature, and that he ‘would never do something like that again.’”

McHaffie agreed that “the delegate’s decision was unreasonable,” said the decision.

“The delegate and the recommending officer materially relied on Mr. Pjetrushi’s use of fraudulent identity documents and unreasonably dismissed his submission that he did so to flee risk in Albania based solely on his two-month delay in filing a refugee claim after arriving in Canada. Their treatment of the supporting character evidence presented by Mr. Pjetrushi was also unreasonable, as it characterized the entirety of that evidence as ‘self-serving’ without justification, and ignored aspects of the evidence relevant to the question of rehabilitation. These errors were central to the delegate’s decision and pertained to important aspects of Mr. Pjetrushi’s rehabilitation application. They are sufficient to render the decision as a whole unreasonable.”

The judge sent Pjetrushi’s rehabilitation application back “for redetermination by a different delegate.”

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