TORONTO — A lawyer for a man who has been detained in Canada for more than eight years over immigration violations says a United Nations human rights monitoring group is calling for his immediate release.
Macdonald Scott says the Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions has investigated the case of Michael Mvogo, who was arrested in 2006, a year after he arrived in Canada on a forged U.S. passport.
Mvogo was dubbed the Man With No Name because authorities were unable to confirm his identity until early 2011, when Mvogo revealed his name and said he was a citizen of the African country of Cameroon.
Scott says the group has prepared a report — he received a copy last week — that calls for Mvogo’s immediate release and suggests the man should receive compensation for his long detention.
Calls to the group’s headquarters in Geneva were not immediately returned.
Scott and a group of activists campaigning for Mvogo’s release delivered a copy of the document to immigration enforcement authorities in Toronto on Thursday, and called for a complete overhaul of the detention system.