Iranian regime member deported from Canada, CBSA confirms

A senior member of the Iranian regime has been deported from Canada after a judge dismissed his last-minute appeal, Global News has learned.

The Canada Border Services Agency said it had removed Syed Salman Samani, Iran’s former deputy interior minister and official spokesperson.

“As a matter of public interest, the CBSA can confirm that it has removed Syed Salman Samani from Canada,” the agency said in a statement.

He is the second regime official to be expelled under a 2022 policy that banned high-ranking members of Iran’s repressive government from Canada.

Before arriving in Canada in 2022, Samani was a “career politician” in the Islamic Republic from 2007 to 2021, according to the CBSA.

“The subject demonstrated his commitment and loyalty to the regime throughout his career,” the CBSA wrote in its report on Samani.

The Immigration and Refugee Board ordered his deportation in 2024. The Federal Court rejected his appeal in a decision released this week.

Federal Court Justice Sébastien Grammond wrote that Samani had told the CBSA he “had significant power and influence over government decisions.”

Further, Samani’s ministry oversaw “police forces, which were responsible for the widespread killing of civilians and other human rights abuses,” Grammond wrote.

As a government spokesperson, Samani “publicly defended the ministry’s conduct” during its 2019 deadly Bloody November crackdown on protesters, the court added.

He also “publicly threatened politicians who were questioning that conduct,” but maintained to the CBSA that he “did nothing wrong during this period.”

Samani had claimed he had decided to leave Iran because of its killing of demonstrators, and said he feared he might be harmed if Canada sent him back to Iran.

But the judge ruled that was unlikely to happen, and was outweighed by Canada’s interests in expelling “those responsible for systematic human rights violations.”

Samani had tried to keep his court appeal secret, but the judge dismissed his application, although it agreed to seal the files on his case due to their sensitivity.