Pubdate: Wed, 25 Apr 2007
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2007 The Vancouver Sun
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: Kim Bolan, Vancouver Sun

CHAIN OF APPEALS KEEPS GANGSTER IN CANADA

Thirty-two-year-old convicted robber Omid Bayani, a member of the
notorious UN gang, was declared too dangerous to stay in Canada in
1997 and ordered out in 1999

Kim Bolan
Vancouver Sun

Omid Bayani was just five when his father was murdered in Iran, the
word Bahai written in big letters on his bare chest.

Now the 32-year-old convicted robber is alleged to be involved in a
criminal organization working with the Hells Angels to traffic drugs
across Canada.

And despite being ordered deported in 1999, Bayani has managed to stay
in B.C., launching review after appeal as police allege he became
entrenched in a underworld of crime, rising in the ranks of a street
gang called the UN or United Nations.

Immigration documents obtained by The Vancouver Sun say the minister
of immigration first declared that Bayani was too dangerous to stay in
this country in July 1997.

But earlier this month -- almost a decade later -- he was still here,
in police custody after being arrested as part of a massive undercover
operation targeting the Hells Angels and their criminal associates
across Canada.

Bayani, who was nabbed in Vancouver April 4, is charged with
participating in a criminal organization and conspiracy to traffic 600
litres of the date rape drug GHB, along with full-patch Haney Hells
Angel Vincenzo James Sansalone.

Bayani remains in custody in Ontario, while Sansalone was released on
bail and returned to B.C. last Friday. The two, along with 29 others,
were rounded up as part of Project Develop, an 18-month operation
targeting the Hells Angels in Ontario, New Brunswick and B.C.
government officials have told The Sun that Bayani remains in Canada
because he has filed another challenge to his long-outstanding
deportation order.

His current application is not public, but the deportation order was
stayed last year pending the outcome of his latest application to stay.

Documents that have been released to The Sun paint a picture of a
troubled young man who first fled with his family to Turkey and later
to Canada as a 16-year-old in September 2001, settling with his
widowed mom and sisters in Red Deer, Alta.

Three years later, out of work and short of cash, Bayani donned a
balaclava and brandished a knife as he embarked on a spree of
late-night convenience store robberies that terrified store clerks and
netted him cash and cigarettes.

A former girlfriend tipped police, who arrested him at his job at a
fast-food joint. He expressed remorse, pleaded guilty, and was cut
some slack at his sentencing hearing after his lawyer said he was
"really just some sort of young puppy out on the lot."

Alberta Provincial Judge Thomas Schollie accepted that Bayani
"basically seemed to feel that he needed some money, so he would just
pop over to the closest convenience store and get a handful and come
back to his friends."

Schollie said the five year sentence he imposed, "does sound a little
on the light side," but the young man was cooperative and without a
criminal record.

The cooperation stopped there.

Prison records show Bayani was a trouble-maker from the moment he
arrived at Bowden Institution, a medium-security prison in Alberta.

"He was, to put it mildly, not a model prisoner," government lawyer G.
Brian Starr said during a 2001 immigration board hearing.

"According to the prison reports, he had 21 institutional charges
against him during the course of his incarceration."

He beat a fellow inmate in the face with a club he had made, with the
words "goof beater" inscribed on it. He began to pick fights with
guards and threaten them. He hooked up with bad associates.

"Since his arrival at Bowden, Bayani has been a constant management
concern as he has frequently displayed open contempt for institutional
rules and defiance towards officers who try to enforce them," a March
1996 prison report says. "Given the impulsive and increasingly
desperate nature of the offender he would present a major risk to
public safety if at large."

He was put in segregation "as a result of a series of incidents in
which he had refused the orders of an officer and then threatened the
said officer and challenged him to a fight."

"The subject has a history of being sullen and defiant of officers,"
another jail report says.

Bowden wardens became so troubled that they decided to ship him off to
Kent, in Agassiz, a maximum-security prison.

"It is obvious from the above that Bayani's behaviour is now
escalating to the point where it is staff as well as inmates who are
being threatened and his attitude and demeanour show no signs of
abating," another report said.

He did not fare much better at Kent.

A 1998 prison report said: "While incarcerated he has on a number of
occasions tried to provoke staff members into fights with him."

And Bayani continually minimized his original offences, according to
the documents.

"It was noted that Bayani's actions during one of the offences caused
a female victim to suffer serious psychological trauma," one prison
report said. "It appears that Bayani does not have a full
understanding of this."

While he was nearing the end of his sentence, federal immigration
officials applied to have him removed from the country.

The federal immigration minister signed off on July 20, 1997, with a
declaration that Bayani "constitutes a danger to the public of Canada."

When he was released from jail, he was immediately turned over to
immigration authorities who ordered him deported in January 1999.

His lawyer then filed an application to stay in Canada on humanitarian
and compassionate grounds and it appears immigration officials lost
track of him for a time.

But that all ended in 2001 when he was visiting a cousin in Kelowna
and the police stopped their car.

"Because of suspicions, the police searched the car, they found
weapons in the car," Starr, the immigration department lawyer, said
during a subsequent hearing.

To be more precise, the weapons included a loaded .38-calibre handgun,
a machete, a hunting knife, and a piece of a wooden chair that police
thought would be used as a club. Officers also found some marijuana
and cocaine.

Both Bayani and his cousin were charged, but the cousin took the rap,
meaning the charges against Bayani were stayed.

Again, in November 2001, Bayani was surrendered to immigration
officials.

At a detention hearing, Starr said the reason Bayani had managed to
stay in Canada for years after his removal order was because he had
"been uncooperative in his removal.

"The lack of cooperation relates to the refusal to fill out an
application for a travel document or biographical information that is
required in order that we can obtain a travel document from the
Iranian authorities," Starr said.

His lawyer Zool Suleman suggested Bayani had been fully cooperative,
but was terrified of applying to the government that had executed his
father for being a Bahai and a member of the Shah's army.

"On his record of landing, Mr. Bayani's noted as being stateless; not
Iranian, but stateless," Suleman argued. "The reality is, in our
submission, that the minister simply lost track of him. He ended up in
the wrong car, at the wrong time and comes to their attention because
the RCMP normally runs a check and finds out if an immigration hold
exists."

After 48 hours in custody, Bayani was again released.

He had a few more brushes with the law in B.C. He was acquitted in the
summer of 2003 on charges of assault causing bodily harm and uttering
threats.

Police say the accused man joined the UN Gang while fighting to stay
in Canada.

The street gang frequents downtown bars where it has had run-ins with
the Hells Angels.

It dubbed itself after the United Nations because it is a multi-ethnic
gang with Indo-Canadians, whites, Iranians and Asian members.

"He is somebody who has made himself well-known criminally and his
involvement in more serious criminal activity has certainly escalated
as he has gained a lot more notoriety with the police and the criminal
world downtown," Insp. Gary Shinkaruk, head of the RCMP's outlaw
motorcycle gang unit, said.

Bayani's latest arrest -- and most serious charges -- came after an
undercover operation involving a full-patch Hells Angel from Ontario
who agreed to work with police to infiltrate the notorious biker gang.
The agent travelled to B.C. in June 2006 under the watchful eye of
local police agencies and met with senior Hells Angels and others.

During that meeting a deal to ship 600 litres of GHB -- the date rape
drug -- was allegedly struck involving Bayani and Sansalone.

Bayani's criminal lawyer Matt Nathanson did not return phone calls
Tuesday.

Shinkaruk said Bayani is a perfect example of the growing
relationships between criminal gangs who at one time may have
considered themselves rivals.

"Mr. Bayani, although he is a UN gang member, was known to work and
associate criminally with other gangs," Shinkaruk said. "The fact that
he is charged jointly with a member of the Hells Angels is not a
surprise to us and it is really indicative of the networking and the
relationships that now exist in the Lower Mainland and throughout
Canada where these criminal organizations are working cooperatively
with each other."
- ---
MAP posted-by: Derek