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Colombo, March 14 (Daily Mirror) - In the wake of a Sri Lankan family killed in Canada and a 19-year-old Sri Lankan national being charged for it, the Canadian authorities will put more attention to safeguards already in place on the mental health of students, according to a diplomatic source.
Febrio De-Zoysa, who is believed to be in Canada as a student, was charged with six counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder, Ottawa police said in a post on X. Six Sri Lankans were stabbed to death in the home they lived in together, including a 2 1/2-month-old girl and three other young children.
The incident has triggered fears in the minds of Sri Lankans whether Canada will toughen visa regulations for them in the future following this incident. A diplomatic source, however, confirmed that Canada would not do so because this was just a one-off incident.
“Canada looks at it as a tragic incident. They are supportive to an unbelievable level to the community. This is not even a topic. But they will put more attention to safeguards already in place on the mental health of students. We as a community will also focus and have mechanisms to ensure our students have a support system. It’s not easy for students to survive in these countries,” the source said.
Meanwhile, Canadian immigration and constitutional law lawyer Viresh Fernando said the murder of six Sri Lankan family members in Ottawa, Canada is a very unusual tragedy.
He said Canada is a stable, rule of law based society where laws, policies and procedures are based on normal, everyday existence. While Canadian people from all walks of life have expressed shock and sadness at what happened in Ottawa, as a society will not react in knee jerk fashion by resorting to drastic measures such as tightening visa requirements.
The fact that the victims of this horrific tragedy are newcomers to Canada will not impact on how we as a society respond to what is at essence a real human tragedy.
Canada is a rules based country. As long as a Sri Lankan applies for a visa to Canada in good faith, either as an immigrant, student or a visitor, he or she will not face any issues. If visa applicants are attempting to abuse the Canadian visa system by trying to claim refugee status or work illegally our system will deal with them very strictly deporting them after a full and fair hearing,” Fernando who is of Sri Lankan origin said.
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According to the Criminal Code of Canada, the accused will be given six concurrent life sentences with no chance of parole for 25 years if convicted.
The accused might plead not guilty by virtue of insanity. If the insanity defense is accepted, the accused will be sentenced to a mental institution for criminals. The accused will have free legal representation - private lawyers paid by the province of Ontario's Legal Aid Plan. The accused will be tried by a jury of 12 peers. The judge will merely ensure that proper procedure is followed. Expert evidence will be called by the Crown and by the defense as to the mental status of the accused.
