Lev Tahor members stopped in Trinidad returning to Canada: police
Posted March 8, 2014 9:23 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Police say nine members of a fringe Jewish sect who fled the country only to be stopped in Trinidad and Tobago will be returned to Canada tonight.
Peel police Const. Fiona Thivierge says the members of Lev Tahor are expected to fly in to Toronto’s Pearson airport around 11 p.m.
She says officers will be on hand to supervise as the children are turned over to children’s aid services.
At least two Lev Tahor families left Canada for Guatemala this week, but were stopped in Trinidad.
Early this week, an Ontario judge issued an emergency order that 14 Lev Tahor children be placed in the care of children’s aid but police said all but two had left the country.
About 200 members of the sect — 114 of them children — settled in Chatham, Ont., last year after suddenly uprooting from Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, Que.
Child-welfare authorities in Quebec spent a year investigating issues related to hygiene, health, and allegations that the children weren’t learning according to the provincial curriculum.
Late last year, a Quebec court ordered that 14 Lev Tahor children be placed in foster care.
The group has denied all allegations of mistreatment.
