Ex-husband of Israeli facing deportation denies abuse

MONTREAL — The lawyer for an allegedly abusive Israeli man who was awarded custody by a rabbinical court of his two children – who are living in Canada with their mother – says the man doesn’t pose the danger to his family suggested by a recent Federal Court decision.

Jonathan Lazar of Richmond, B.C., said his client, Yossef Makias, strongly denies the portrait of him as violent and liable to harm his children that was presented to the Federal Court by his ex-wife. Renata Makias won a temporary stay March 13 from Judge Sean Harrington after she claimed she feared for the safety of their children, aged 13 and 12.

The decision allows Mrs. Makias to remain in Canada pending a judicial review of her request for permanent resident status on humanitarian grounds, which was denied by the Federal Court on March 5.

Mr. Makias, who has been back in Israel since 2005, was not given the opportunity to present his side of the story to the Federal Court, when Mrs. Makias made a bid to avoid deportation, Lazar said, nor in any other Canadian court or to Immigration Canada in the almost four years since the couple became estranged.

The Makias family came to Canada five years ago and claimed refugee status, which was denied. Lazar said the family was among about 20 Israeli families who, on the dubious advice of a Montreal immigration consultant, landed in Montreal during 2002-03 and sought asylum on the grounds they feared being victims of terrorism in Israel.

The Makias family appealed until their recourses were exhausted by March 2004. They were ordered to leave the country by July 2005. Mr. Makias left, but Mrs. Makias and the two children went into hiding, later surfacing in Montreal.

Lazar, who has represented Mr. Makias for nearly four years, said his client was never notified of the Federal Court hearing and did not know Mrs. Makias had been arrested in January in Montreal and detained. She was released after the Federal Court decision. The children remain in hiding, and she will not divulge their whereabouts.

Lazar said the Tel Aviv rabbinical court was apparently not aware that Quebec Superior Court had given custody of the children to Mrs. Makias in November 2006, eight months after granting her a divorce, and therefore did not act in the “disturbing” manner described in the Federal Court decision, rendered one day before she was to be put on a plane bound for Israel.

Lazar said a psychological assessment, ordered by a B.C. court in 2005 when Mrs. Makias first sought custody, concluded that the children had been “negatively influenced” by their mother against their father, Lazar said, and no evidence of abuse was found.

Her custody claim was dismissed in B.C., citing her lack of legal standing in Canada, Lazar said.

Harrington’s March 5 decision cites testimony by the son that he and his sister lived in fear of their father’s violence and that they are afraid of returning to Israel.

Harrington wrote that Mrs. Makias and the children “face imminent peril on their return” to Israel because the rabbinical decision calls for them to be immediately handed over to their father. Harrington expressed serious concern that the rabbinical court, which has jurisdiction in family law matters in Israel, ignored a Canadian court’s custody order.

But Lazar said the evidence is that Mrs. Makias only started alleging abuse in a last-ditch effort to remain in Canada. He alleges that the children have been “alienated” from their father by their mother, and possibly psychologically harmed by being in hiding for 21/2 years.

Lazar also said that the only attempt he is aware of that Mrs. Makias made to notify her estranged husband that she was seeking a divorce in Quebec Superior Court was an ad in a paper in Richmond, B.C., a Vancouver suburb, where the family had lived.

Lazar said Mr. Makias did not know of the Quebec proceedings until Mrs. Makias’ case went to Federal Court. He is contesting the awarding of custody to his ex-wife on the grounds that she misled the court. That appeal was scheduled to be heard by the Quebec Court of Appeal April 2.

Lazar is also arguing that Mrs. Makias lived in Quebec less than the 12 months required for its courts to have authority to hear the case.

Lazar said that while it’s correct that his client was charged by B.C. authorities in June 2004 with uttering threats of physical harm against his wife, he was never brought to trial. He was subject to a police-issued peace bond removing him from he family home, Lazar said, but not a court-sanctioned restraining order. The Federal Court decision refers to his breach of certain conditions of a restraining order.

Lazar said Mrs. Makias’ father, a Canadian citizen living in Richmond, testified on her behalf before the rabbinical court in Israel. Lazar said there is no evidence that he told that court about the Quebec court’s custody order. He said the rabbis’ decision does not mention any allegations of abuse against Mr. Makias either.

The rabbinical court’s main reason for ordering that the children be transferred to their father’s care without delay was that their mother was unlawfully in Canada, and that an arrest warrant had, in fact, been issued against her, Lazar said. The rabbis stressed they believed they were acting in the best interests of the children.

Lazar applied in B.C. to have the rabbinical court ruling recognized in Canada.