TONIGHT’S JACKPOT
WE DAY
CELEBRITIES NELLY, DESMAN, HANSEN TALK ABOUT WHY IT’S IMPORTANT {pages 9, 10}
$30
WILDE ABOUT HER MAN OLIVIA’S NEW FLAME {page 38}
TORONTO
Weekend, September 23-25, 2011 www.metronews.ca News worth sharing.
‘Now … we’re dreaming’ RICK MADONIK/TORSTAR NEWS SERVICE
Tabaj family returns to Canada after deportation overturned Ordered to leave country two years ago They were just three years old when their family was deported from Canada, but the Tabaj twins, Kristian and Vincenco, now five-years-old, never forgot Canada — the place their parents and sister adopted after fleeing Albania, fearing for their lives. “Now we’re back, and we’re dreaming,” said their mother, Anilda Tabaj as the twins clutched miniature Canadian flags and their older sister, Maria, grinned and said she couldn’t wait to see her friends. Their father, 41-year-old Arjan Tabaj, knelt down and kissed the ground. “For me, for my family, this means future, hope, freedom,” he said, holding back tears. The Tabaj family returned to the country Thursday after two years away. Last month, a judge overturned a June 2009 deportation order that sent them back to Albania. The Tabajs took refuge in Canada after an alleged assassination attempt on Arjan Tabaj’s life in April 2000. According to the family, he was in a vehicle with colleagues from the pro-democracy newspaper where he worked when they were ambushed by machine-gun fire. Two of the occupants in the car were killed, and Tabaj was left partially paralyzed and lost his left foot. In January 2001, the couple and their daughter entered Canada using fake passports. They remained for several years,
settling in Etobicoke. But they had problems getting refugee status, due to an abandoned claim made during a brief stay in Canada in the late 1990s. Despite pleas from friends, family and then-MP for the Tabajs’ Etobicoke Centre riding, Borys Wrzesnewskyj, the family was deported in 2009. They spent the last two years in hiding in Albania, mov“For me, for my ing from place to place, and not family, this allowing their means future, children to leave, hope, even to go to freedom.... We school. Still, the says they want to forget. family received death We want to threats and claim they were focus on the the victims of future now.” another assassiARJAN TABAJ nation attempt. Arjan Tabaj refused to give details about the assassination attempt or the past two years in hiding. “We want to forget. We want to focus on the future now,” he said. The family was also secretive about their plans, refusing to disclose where they will stay. TORSTAR NEWS SERVICE
Former MP Borys Wrzesnewskyj, left, welcomes Arjan Tabaj at Pearson airport Thursday after Tabaj and his family arrived in Canada. Wife Anilda and one of the couple’s sons is seen with her.