Filipino held for drugs in Canada fears EJK if deported to PH, says lawyer

Fentanyl was among the drugs Al Inocencio was convicted of selling in North Vancouver, Canada. AP FILE

NORTH VANCOUVER, B.C. — A Filipino sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to drug charges faces the more worrisome likelihood of being deported to the Philippines where he could become a victim of extrajudicial killing, his lawyer warned.

Al Victor Pascual Inocencio sold cocaine, heroin and fentanyl to undercover police 17 times from November 2017 to June 2018, almost all of it from the parking lots of North Vancouver fast food restaurants and stores, according to a report by North Shore News.

The first 16 sales included 300 grams of fentanyl, heroin and cocaine. The last sale was for 284 grams of fentanyl, which is 100 times more powerful than morphine, in exchange for $20,000.

His lawyer Mark Cacchioni said Inocencio grew up poor in the Philippines, struggled in school in Canada, held jobs as a delivery driver and construction worker until an acquaintance persuaded him to sell drugs.

Cacchioni said the five-year sentence was appropriate for first-time offender Inocencio, but what comes after he has served time was more worrisome.

Barring direct intervention by the minister of immigration, Inocencio would almost certainly be deported back to the Philippines where he could face extrajudicial killing by death squads acting on the orders of President Rodrigo Duterte, he said.

“The discretion, even in a hardship case, is extremely limited, so essentially Mr. Inocencio is going to have to present a compelling case his life will be in very real, not imagined, danger from the moment he steps off an airplane,” Cacchioni said.

“I am told anecdotally that it is not uncommon for persons who are suspected even of being drug users in the Philippines to receive beatings and to receive death. … That’s not what we believe in Canada but that’s what they believe there.”

Cacchioni asked Judge Joanne Challenger to recommend his client serve his sentence in a low- or medium-security prison where he will have better access to programs to improve himself.

Asked if he had anything to say before she adjourned, Inocencio simply said “I’m sorry, your honor.”