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HARBERT -- If nothing
else, the strange deportation case involving Harbert
businessman Ibrahim Parlak has made more people
aware of Parlak's restaurant and this tiny community
on Lake Michigan's shoreline.
A Turkish Kurd, Parlak, owner of the Cafe Gulistan
in Harbert, was arrested in July at the FBI office
in St. Joseph.
Officials with the Department of Homeland Security
claimed that Parlak, in order to receive asylum to
the United States in 1991, lied about terrorist
activities that took place more than 15 years ago in
Turkey and Europe.
Although Parlak's attorneys argued much of the
government's case was based on a misunderstanding of
his role in a firefight on the Turkish-Syrian border
in the late 1980s, when two Turkish soldiers were
killed, a federal immigration judge wasn't moved. On
Wednesday, Judge Elizabeth Hacker sided with the
government and ordered that Parlak be deported to
Turkey.
The decision shocked Parlak's supporters and legal
team, mainly because the judge ruled in the
government's favor on all counts. Parlak attorney
and former Berrien County Prosecutor John Smietanka
said one of the counts was a claim that Turkey's
amendment of a 15-year-old prison sentence for
Parlak constituted a new criminal charge of
aggravated assault.
"The government charged that he committed the
offense after he arrived here in the United
States,'' he said. "In our view of the law, that's
patently wrong.''
Smietanka said he's hopeful an appellate court will
take a different view of the case against Parlak.
But even if it doesn't, he said there are strong
indications the Turkish government doesn't want him
back.
"Then he'll sit in jail (in the United States) until
the (U. S.) government decides what to do with
him,'' he said.
Staff writer Lou Mumford:
http://www.southbendtribune.com
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