Canadian Citizen Released from Bihar Jail after Serving 10 Months
Patna: March 27, 2008
Canadian national and businessman Saul Itzhayak walked out of a Motihari jail a free man on late Wednesday evening after spending ten months in incarceration on charges of entering the country without a visa or other official documents.
Itzhayak was condemned to three years of imprisonment by an East Champaran session court leading to an international stalemate as Canadian government negotiated with the Indian officials to free its citizen whose crime, they said, was a 'wrong man in the wrong place'.
He was arrested at the Indo-Nepal border after border officials in Raxaul charged him of illegal entry into the country without proper documents last May.
Itzhayak, who thanked both Indian and Canadian officials that led to his dramatic release, was scheduled to fly for Canada from Kathmandu on Thursday.
Earlier, Canadian government had appealed to the President of India and Bihar Governor for Itzhayak's immediate release.
A session court in Motihari last week cut short his prison term and ordered him released and escorted to Nepal for his flight back home.
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