Suspected terrorist who flew into Vancouver with a grenade and fake passports was released from a Richmond jail to claim refugee status in Canada.

By Asian Pacific News Service

A suspected terrorist, who flew into Vancouver armed with a hand grenade and plans to hijack a jumbo jet has now been accused of trying to bomb embassies in the Philippines.

The man was sentenced to only a day in a Richmond jail on fake passport charges before a B.C. court judge ordered him released.

He was subsequently deported after claiming refugee status in Canada.

The Asian Pacific Post has learned that the man Philippine authorities have nabbed is Khachik Aslanyan aka Khatchik Aslanian, 41, an Armenian national.

He was the same man who was arrested at the Vancouver International Airport and then released to claim refugee status in Canada just weeks before the 1997 Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) conference in the city.

Several countries, including Canada, closed their foreign diplomatic missions in Manila recently fearing terrorist attacks.

It could not be determined if the threats that forced the closures were linked to Aslanian's arrest in the Philippines.

"I remember at that time that we were furious that this guy got only a day...I think Immigration Canada finally managed to kick him out of the country," said a retired RCMP officer familiar with the 1997 arrest.

"Some of us felt he was a real threat then but we did not know what we know now about terrorism," he said.

The suspected terrorist was arrested in the Philippines last November and held at an immigration facility in Intramuros from where he escaped.

He was rearrested last month in Makati City by joint agents of the Philippine's Bureau of Immigration and naval intelligence.

This time he was held at a maximum security prison at Fort Bonifacio where he was interrogated by Philippine military intelligence officials.

Philippine Immigration Commissioner Andrea Domingo has ordered Aslanian deported to the Armenian capital of Yerevan after declaring him a threat to national security.

Officials said he had planned to attack foreign diplomatic missions in Manila including bombing the Turkish Embassy in the Southeast Asian nation's capital city.

Aslanian was arrested at the Vancouver International Airport on the afternoon of Oct. 31, 1997 after arriving at 11:15 a.m. on Korean Airlines Flight 071 from South Korea and the Philippines.

A graphic artist of some calibre, Aslanian had created two fake passports - one Saudi Arabian and the other Swiss - and planned to claim political-refugee status in Canada.

Working with a microscope he created for himself the identity of Majed Aborashed, a Saudi citizen and also forged a passport belonging to a Swiss named Edgar Lishcher.

He lived under the Swiss identity in the Philippines for three years before coming to Vancouver.

Police at the time of his arrest said they found the grenade during a search of his belongings. Some of the powder from the grenade had been removed.

"We believe his intention was to enter Canada and get refugee status. He was very well versed [on how to get refugee status]," said former Richmond RCMP Sergeant Willy Laurie after the arrest.

Of the grenade, Laurie said: "He could have used it to threaten people, but not to hurt people."

A report to the Crown filed by RCMP Const. K.J. Hilland states: "It is significant to note the subject did not volunteer the information of the hand grenade.

"The customs officers discovered the grenade during their search of his personal effects."

Aslanian told police that he brought the grenade to "get attention". Police suspected he was ready to use it to hijack the Korean Airlines jumbo jet if he ran into any trouble getting to Canada.

After he was released to claim refugee status in Canada, Aslanian visited the Vancouver Province newspaper offices to give an interview.

He told a reporter then that he was living in a $100-a-week hotel in Vancouver where he had made friends with local women.

He claimed to have $50,000 in a bank account in the Philippines.

Aslanian claimed he had worked for Soviet naval intelligence, joined the underground Armenian National Liberation Front (ANLF), escaped from jail, then spent three years in the Philippines under a false identity.

"I am an artist," he declared. "I can change a passport in two minutes... I can dismantle and put together a Kalashnikov (rifle) in less than 90 seconds," he said.

Aslanian claimed he worked at a Soviet naval station at Olga Bay between 1985 and 1988, decoding messages from headquarters, and that the Soviets got him to illustrate pieces of propaganda.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he travelled to the United States and throughout Europe.

He returned to Armenia, he said, where he joined the ANLF movement.

His job was to draw anti-government leaflets and cartoons. He said he was put in jail for allegedly possessing narcotics.

Aslanian claimed that he bribed prison officials and escaped on a garbage truck in the middle of the night.

He made his way to Iran, Pakistan and then the Philippines, where he married a prostitute so that he could stay.

"I was getting tired of living under someone else's name," said Aslanian of his plans to come to Canada.