A former Russian spy who once lived in Toronto under a false name, found love and rejected her roots, is suing Ottawa for refusing to let her return here as a landed immigrant, said reports quoted by AFP.
Elena Miller, 43, was deported in June 1996 after the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) blew her cover, the Globe and Mail reported.
Her second husband, a British-born Toronto doctor, has since tried to sponsor her back into the country, only to be thwarted by immigration officers who found the marriage was legitimate but deemed her a security threat.
Citizenship and Immigration Canada denied Miller’s application in 2001 because of her past employment with the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) and a Federal Court judge recently upheld the decision.
The Millers have now relocated to Switzerland and filed a statement of claim seeking unspecified damages from Canada’s immigration department over the case.
“If one of our CSIS agents were to quit, would it be held against him forever?” Miller’s advocate Barbara Jackman lamented in the Globe and Mail article.
“In security cases, unlike in criminal cases, you can never overcome your past. It is never forgiven,” she said.
Pema Lhalungpa, a spokeswoman for Immigration Minister Monte Solberg, refused to comment on the case, citing Canadian privacy laws.
Elena Miller came to Canada in the early 1990s with her first husband, also a Russian spy. They took the names of Canadian infants who died at birth 25 years earlier and found jobs as insurance and photography lab clerks, respectively, the newspaper said.
But, CSIS tracked the pair and deported them back to Russia after deciding their espionage had become a security risk, although not before their marriage fell apart and both started new relationships in Canada.
Back in Moscow, Elena (her real name is Yelena Olshanskaya) divorced her husband, renounced her spy career and married Peter Miller in December 1996, maintaining a long-distance relationship for a decade.
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