A Canadian court on Friday ruled that an immigration board had erred in refusing political asylum to a US man who sought to avoid military service in Iraq, and ordered a new hearing.
Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board in November 2006 rejected an asylum request by Joshua Adam Key, his wife and their four children, saying that their situation was not severe enough to justify his desertion from the US army.
"The board was of the view that unless the events Mr. Key described were sufficiently egregious as to constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity, they could not, for the purpose of obtaining refugee protection, justify his desertion from the United States Army," it said at the time.
But a federal court overturned that decision, saying it was too strict an interpretation of the law.
"Upon review, the court concluded that military action which systematically degrades, abuses or humiliates either combatants or non-combatants is capable of supporting a refugee claim where that is the proven reason for refusing to serve," it said.
The board "erred by imposing a too restrictive legal standard upon Mr. Key," it said, adding that Key "should be given the opportunity to fully address the issue of state protection in a rehearing before the board."
Key enlisted in the US army in 2002 and was sent to Iraq in April 2003 as a soldier in the 43rd Combat Engineer Company. By the end of that year, he took a two-week leave in the United States and never returned to duty in Iraq.
He and his family later fled across the border into Canada.
Key told the Immigration and Refugee Board that he had witnessed abuse of Iraqis, arbitrary detentions, and cases of humiliation and pillaging by his counterparts which were largely ignored by his superiors.
Canada previously welcomed tens of thousands of American draft dodgers during the Vietnam War era.
But the Immigration and Refugee Board has said more recently, in a decision supported last year by the federal court, that US asylum seekers are not conventional refugees under UN High Commissioner for Refugees rules, nor in need of protection.
Accordingly, their refugee claims have been denied.
As many as 200 Iraq War resisters are said to be currently in Canada, many of them living underground.
