Oh, What a Tangled Web of Deceit

"I didn't want the clients in the shadows, because it's in the shadows that they'd end up disappearing or being killed."
"My clients were de-facto participants in the whistle-blowing exercise that Mr. Snowden made, and the Hong Kong government just wants them to disappear."
"If you look at all the evidence together, to me it's quite obvious that the Hong Kong government, the Chinese government, whichever government it is -- they're very uncomfortable with the Snowden refugees." 
"I'm pretty much out of money. My wife and I are pretty much living in poverty. The bottom line is my career in Hong Kong is over."
Rob Tibbo, Canadian expatriate lawyer

I think a gamble was taken to bring attention to them in a positive way."
"It doesn't seem like that worked."
Oliver Stone, "Snowden" film director

"Clearly there is an attempt at getting rid of my clients."
"They have been increasingly targeted by Hong Kong authorities. [Canadian authorities must act swiftly, otherwise they will be] condemning them to death [the refugee clients of Mr. Bibbo whom he convinced to hide Snowden; a Sri Lankan couple with two children, an unrelated Sri Lankan man and a Filipino woman and her daughter]."
Marc-Andre Seguin, Montreal lawyer

Rob Tibbo arranged for the U.S. whistleblower, then the planet’s most-wanted man, to hide with three refugee families. Now they seem to be facing the consequences

"This is retaliation at its most brazen. You can't look at something like this without getting a sense that the mask has dropped ... [and] there's a machine that would burn everything we love to the ground without a tear if it meant making a problem go away."
"[American officials are pulling strings in Hong Kong to do] what they can to make the lives of the families harder, because they're a symbol."
Edward Snowden, former U.S. National Security Agency contractor

"Welfare case officers asked me how many days Edward Snowden stayed in my house. I refused to answer the question and they cut all my assistance ..."
"I'm shocked."
"I helped him from the bottom of my heart. There was no pressure for me, no thinking twice to help him ... What he's done, I'm very proud of him, he's a hero."
Vanessa Rodel, Filipino, refugee claimant, Hong Kong

"To allow them to be identified with Edward Snowden, and to have their names, photographs and where they live widely publicized could well be damaging to their safety and interests [the sole reason that the Hong Kong Bar Association is giving credence to a] large group of exasperated barristers [at the professional conduct of Rob Tibbo]."
Robert Pang, bar association spokesman

Canadian lawyer Robert Tibbo with Edward Snowden in Russia last year. (Lindsay Mills)

Here is a Canadian lawyer who has been practising immigration and refugee law for the past 14 years in Hong Kong who took it upon himself to render service to Edward Snowden, wanted by the United States for having absconded with classified document disclosing that the U.S. and allies were conducting Internet surveillance along with those of telephones, in their dragnet meant to capture the presence of enemy infiltrators post 9/11, which also caught unrelated data belonging to millions of American citizens.

Mr. Snowden took that documentation to be 'leaked' to journalists in the breaching of classified information revealing digital spycraft; a situation that clearly identifies Snowden who through lifting that intelligence into the public sphere became a traitor to his country. He resides now far from the reach of American agents who would like to spirit him back to the U.S. to stand trial, in Russia which has given him haven, a country which dispatches their own citizens who betray their country to a quick death wherever they happen to find refuge abroad.

Mr. Tibbo portrays himself as someone whose intentions have been nobly-inspired, much like Mr. Snowden's, and just as Snowden is viewed by many as a hero, so too does Mr. Tibbo portray himself, a man who answered his conscience and who for his pains is now being victimized by the very law society he was part of in Hong Kong, as well as the island state's police. China doing the bidding of its nemesis, the United States? More likely China fearing that doing nothing will encourage others to do against China what Snowden did against his own country.\

Lawyer Robert Tibbo, right, arrives with his refugee clients to speak to the press outside the Immigration Tower in Hong Kong on May 15, 2017. (Anthony Wallace/AFP/Getty Images)

The wisdom Mr. Tibbo demonstrated in manipulating vulnerable people awaiting refugee status in Hong Kong for his own ends has boomeranged on him as he is now persona non grata in Hong Kong, his professional status there no longer viable. And in implicating the seven refugees from Sri Lanka and the Philippines in his bid for notoriety and fame he has ensured that their application for haven has been irrevocably closed off and their futures uncertain.

Not much to be proud of, there. While awaiting verification or denial of their refugee claims in a backlog of such applications, the government of Hong Kong was providing funding to the three families for their living expenses. They have now been effectively cut off from any financial support from Hong Kong. The man they trusted and continue to trust convinced them they would be performing a humanitarian act in shielding Snowden from the consequences of his actions.

Tibbo could, after all, have taken Snowden in to shelter him in his own home. Who might have suspected? Instead, he chose to implicate innocent people who were his clients dependent on  his professional expertise, leaving them now in a mess that his actions has resulted in, while bemoaning the fact that he has been the victim of repercussions relating to his professional misconduct. He is now back in Canada, preparing to put his professional life back together.


The plight of the Hong Kong-resident refugees is now being defended by a group of Montreal lawyers who are pressing the government to proffer asylum to them to ensure they are not sent back to their countries of origin, where, the lawyers claim, they will be certain to suffer horrendous discrimination, a possibility that 'terrifies" the refugees. Refugee-hungry Canada will come to their rescue.