| No word on Canadian presence at Texas polygamist community | |
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By Becky Rynor, Canwest News Service Vancouver Sun | |
OTTAWA - Foreign Affairs said Tuesday it still does not know for certain whether there were any Canadians among the women and children taken from a polygamist community near Eldorado, Texas. "The Canadian consul in Dallas has still not received any calls regarding any Canadians involved, nor has (the department of Foreign Affairs)," spokeswoman Eugenie Cormier-Lassonde said. "Nobody from there has asked us for consular assistance, or the American authorities have not informed us of any Canadians involved. But you never know. Sometimes people don't call straight away. Or they might be dual nationals. It can turn out tomorrow that some people would ask us, but for now we have not received any calls for consular assistance," she said. Late last week Texas authorities removed 416 children from the remote west Texas ranch that belongs to a breakaway Mormon sect linked to jailed polygamist leader Warren Jeffs. A spokesman with the Texas Child Protective Services department said they were still trying to determine identities of the children and of 133 women who had also left the compound. "It's difficult to determine who they are, because they all have similar names, sometimes these children have the same names. They change names, so identifying exactly who they are has not yet happened," Darrell Azar told Canwest Tuesday. "There are steps in the legal process where we can start to deal with that now that we have them in our care, in our custody. But right now we don't really know who all these people are." Law enforcement officials initially swooped in on the compound - in a remote, semi-arid region of west Texas, northwest of San Antonio - in response to a complaint of abuse by a young woman there. That woman has not been identified. Authorities also told Reuters an undisclosed number of men remain on the compound and have not been allowed to leave while an investigation into allegations of abuse continues. A court hearing will be held in San Angelo at Tom Green County courthouse on April 17, in which additional information will become public, Azar said. "It's called an Adversarial 14-day hearing. Under Texas law, 14 days after a legal removal, there is a hearing in which everyone who is a party to the case, including the parents, have the right to come and tell the judge and present evidence on their behalf of their position related to these children." The Texas Department of Public Security said Tuesday that two men have been arrested in connection with the children being taken into protective custody. Levi Barlow Jeffs was arrested Sunday for interfering with the duties of a public servant. Leroy Johnson Steed was arrested Monday night for tampering with physical evidence. - with files from Reuters | |
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canada.com Originally published Tuesday, April 8, 2008 | |
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