On Humanitarian and Compassionate Grounds

"He came to me in 2012 saying that, you know, he wanted to change his life and all this stuff. He wants to kind of ... find a better environment for his family."
"I had no indication that he had a background of violence. He was very soft-spoken -- like he was not a very loud person."
"He was quiet, to himself."
Chris Franco, owner, Franco Kickboxing/Pankration, Vancouver, British Columbia

"At this time the federal government is not willing to let us bring him here because he's a Cuban national."
"If the defendant is found not guilty, the question then becomes what does he do. If he was an Italian national, we would send him back to Italy."
"We can't send this man back to Cuba."
Gail Levine, Miami-Dade prosecutor

Kelly Giraldo (right), owner of a Burnaby hair salon, and her husband Ariel Gandulla. Gandulla 
is wanted on murder charges in Florida. The couple and their three kids came to Canada in June 
2012. They have been living in the Lower Mainland. (Facebook photo) PNG

The man in question here has a family, a wife and three young children. His wife established a hair salon in Burnaby, after the family arrived in Canada in 2012, where they now live in that suburb of Vancouver. The 50-year-old Ariel Gandulla, a Cuban who lived legally in the United States, is wanted in the U.S. on charges of a particularly grim murder. Charged with him are three other men; one of whom is the owner of a chain of groceries who hired the three to murder a man who had been sleeping with his wife.

An arrest warrant had been issued by American prosecutors for the 2011 murder of Camilo Salazar. The man's mutilated corpse had been set on fire, and the remains were found on a South Florida dirt road. His hands had been tied behind his back, his throat slashed, his pelvic section burned. A most particularly grisly murder. And one of the murderers is living, as a fugitive from justice, in Vancouver.

The charges laid by U.S. prosecutors include murder, kidnapping and conspiracy to commit murder. Yet scruples are expressed on moral grounds that both Canada and the U.S. are squeamish about returning the man to his country of birth and citizenship?

Two of Mr. Gandulla's companions-in-murder are incarcerated in Miami while the man who recruited and paid them has fled the U.S. and is believed to be in hiding in Spain. Gandulla had permanent residency status in the U.S. though a Cuban national. Gandulla, at age 50, 5-foot-11, is a Mixed Martial Arts middleweight. He trained at Franco Kickboxing, where he pursued judo and Muay Thai. Gandulla worked as a welder and he has been attempting to obtain Canadian citizenship.

The little matter of his application for refugee status however, is an issue that has held him back. There were a number of attempts to obtain permanent residence status dating back to 2014. That Gandulla is known to have a record of criminal activity, including allegations of involvement with a violent street gang, charges of battery on law enforcement, a conviction for cocaine possession while living in the U.S., hardly makes him an ideal candidate for Canadian citizenship.

Understandably, the family's 2014 application for refugee status and permanent residency on humanitarian and compassionate grounds was denied -- with the documentation presented outlining his illegal and criminal U.S. activities. The family made another similar attempt a year later, and it too was turned down. And since neither Cuba or the United States is prepared to authorize his re-entry, the Canadian government has few options to deal with this man other than to grant a judicial review to be considered by a different immigration officer.

The reason that the U.S. Miami-based prosecutor knew where the man wanted for involvement in a nasty murder is that his location was posted on his Facebook page, since deleted. Obviously, this man is no genius; as a fugitive from justice incapable of keeping a low profile because social media beckoned. A violent criminal and a cretin but for the time being he's living in Canada and feels entitled to having his refugee claim considered on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.

MMA fighters Alexis Vila (left) and Ariel Gandulla (right) at the Young Tigers Gym in Miami in 2008. Vila and Gandulla are now accused of taking part in a murder plot. Gaston De Cardenas / PNG