The Canadian government is pushing to revoke the citizenship of a Pakistan-born businessman accused of playing a key role in the 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai, India that left 166 dead.
Documents obtained by Global News show that immigration officials have notified Tahawwur Rana Hussain that they intend to strip him of the Canadian citizenship he acquired in 2001.
The 65-year-old immigrated to Canada in 1997, and was later convicted in the United States of plotting to attack staff at a Danish newspaper that printed cartoons depicting the Muslim prophet Mohamed.
He is currently in custody in India, where he is awaiting trail on charges alleging he facilitated the Mumbai attack that was carried out by Pakistani terror group Lashkar-e-Tayyiba.
But in its decision, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada wrote that Hussain’s citizenship was being revoked not for terrorism, but rather because he lied on his application form.
When Hussain applied for citizenship in 2000, he claimed to have lived in Ottawa and Toronto for the previous four years, with only a six-day absence from the country, the IRCC wrote in a report.
An RCMP investigation, however, determined he had actually spent almost that entire time in Chicago, where he owned several properties and businesses, including an immigration firm and a grocery store.
The revocation decision accused him of “a serious and deliberate deception,” and said his “lack of respect for the citizenship laws of Canada” had led immigration officials to wrongly grant him citizenship.
“Yours is a case in which it appears that you misrepresented your residence in Canada during the application process for citizenship by deliberately failing to declare your absences from Canada,” IRCC wrote to him on May 31, 2024.
“Your misrepresentation led decision makers to believe that you had met the residence requirements for citizenship, when it appears you had not.”
The government said it was referring his case to the Federal Court, which has the final say on whether citizenship was obtained by “false representation or fraud or by knowingly concealing material circumstances.”
A Toronto immigration lawyer representing Hussain, also known as Tahawwur Hussain Rana, has appealed the decision, arguing it was unfair and violated his rights.
A hearing related to the revocation was held in Federal Court last week. Government lawyers asked the court on Dec. 19 for permission to withhold sensitive national security information from the case.
An immigration department spokesperson told Global News that cancelling citizenship for misrepresentation was “an important tool for maintaining the integrity of Canadian citizenship.”
To ensure the process is fair, the Federal Court makes the final decision in such cases, Mary Rose Sabater said. “The Government does not take the revocation of citizenship lightly.”
She said she could not say how many such revocations had occurred because the department did not track them, but a review by Global News identified only three such decisions in the past decade.
‘A Canadian is a Canadian’
Tahawwur Rana is escorted to court in New Delhi, India, April 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Dinesh Joshi).
Revoking the citizenship of convicted terrorists became a politically-charged issue more than a decade ago, after Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government enacted a law that allowed Ottawa to do so — as long as the person had a second citizenship.
During the 2015 federal election campaign, the Liberals portrayed the legislation as a form of two-tiered citizenship and promised to repeal the law, using the slogan “a Canadian is a Canadian.”
Once elected, the Liberal government axed the law and reinstated citizenship to more than a dozen convicted terrorists who had been stripped of their Canadian nationality.
But under the Liberals, the government has continued to take steps to revoke the citizenship of Canadians implicated in terrorism — although only on the grounds of misrepresentation.
In 2024, Marc Miller, then the immigration minister, said he was looking into revoking the citizenship of Ahmed Eldidi, who was arrested for allegedly plotting an ISIS-inspired terrorist attack in Toronto.
His comments came after Global News reported that the Egyptian-born Canadian had obtained citizenship despite having allegedly appeared in an ISIS execution video in which he dismembered a prisoner in Iraq.
The documents on the Hussain case show that in 2023, the government of then-Prime Minister Justin Trudeau re-initiated revocation proceedings that began under the Harper Conservatives.
“It is important to note that the basis of these renovation proceedings is solely rooted in the allegations that you directly misrepresented your residence in Canada during your relevant residence period for Canadian citizenship,” the IRCC wrote to Hussain.
“The onus is on the applicant to be honest and truthful throughout the entirety of their immigration and citizenship application processes leading up to the grant of citizenship.”
Tahawwur Rana Hussain obtained Canadian citizenship by claiming he lived in Ottawa when the RCMP alleged he was actually residing at this Chicago home. (AP Photo/Paul Beaty).
Should the Federal Court approve revoking Hussain’s citizenship, he would retain his status as a permanent resident, meaning he could still enter Canada and reapply for citizenship after ten years.
But first he faces a high-profile trial in India, where the Islamist attack he is accused of aiding has had a deep impact and fractured relations with Pakistan, where the terrorists were based.
The three-day siege at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, a Jewish community center and other locations in Mumbai was one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in modern history. Two Canadians were among the dead.
Following the incident, Hussain allegedly said in intercepted communications that the victims “deserved it,” and the terrorists who conducted the assault should receive medals for “gallantry in battle.”
Because of Hussain’s citizenship, the case has helped feed India’s portrayal of Canada as a national security threat, although according to the documents obtained by Global News, he never truly lived in the country.
The attempt by immigration authorities to strip his citizenship is moving forward in court as Prime Minister Mark Carney is working to restore relations with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Carney is expected to visit New Delhi, where he is seeking a trade deal, although the RCMP accuses Modi’s government of murdering a Sikh activist in Surrey, B.C., in 2023, and plotting to kill other Canadian opponents.
Canada also believes India has worked in cooperation with the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, which is responsible for many of the extortions that have spread fear in cities with large South Asian populations.
Who is Tahawwur Rana Hussain
Chigaco grocery store owned by Tahawwur Rana Hussain, who allegedly obtained Canadian citizenship by falsely claiming he lived in Canada. (AP Photo/Paul Beaty).
Hussain served in the Pakistani military before immigrating to Canada as a skilled worker, crossing the border via Windsor’s Ambassador Bridge on Sept. 28, 1997, along with his wife and three children.
Three years later, he applied for Canadian citizenship, writing on his forms that he had resided in the country since his arrival. He was approved and took the oath of citizenship on May 31, 2001.
But questions arose after he was arrested in Chicago in 2009 on charges alleging he was involved in the Mumbai attacks, as well as a plot to kill staff of Denmark’s Jyllands-Posten newspaper.
Government documents show that 12 days later, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada asked American authorities for details of his U.S. immigration status and travel history.
Canada’s immigration department received the “package of information and documentation” from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Nov. 26, 2009, and asked the RCMP to investigate.
A jury convicted Hussain of planning attacks in Copenhagen and providing material support to Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, but acquitted him of direct involvement in the Mumbai attack.
The RCMP wrapped up its in investigation in October 2012, and informed immigration officials that Hussain had been living in Chicago during the time he had claimed to be a resident of Canada.
Although he had not spent enough time in the country to qualify for citizenship, Hussain had lied in his application form in order to acquire status as a Canadian national, according to the allegations.
Chris Alexander, who was then the Minister of Immigration in the Harper government, signed the paperwork recommending the revocation of his citizenship for misrepresentation.
India’s National Investigative Agency with Tahawwur Rana Hussain following his extraditiom from the U.S.
NIA
On June 10, 2020, India asked the U.S. to extradite Hussain to face charges over the Mumbai attack. Two weeks later, Canadian immigration resumed efforts to revoke his citizenship.
In 2024, Canada notified Hussain it was sending his case to the Federal Court for a decision, dismissing his complaints that he was chronically ill and thought he had met the residence requirements.
“In short, I always thought that I am maintaining my Primary Residence in Canada,” he wrote in a letter. “In my Canadian citizenship application I did not knowingly conceal material circumstances or committed [Sic] fraud.”
The U.S. announced on April 10, 2025 that Hussain, described in the news release as a “Canadian citizen and native of Pakistan,” had been extradited to India to face 10 charges over the Mumbai attack.
“I’m glad that day has come,” U.S. President Donald Trump’s Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, wrote on X, noting that six Americans were among those killed during the assault.
India has accused Hussain of giving his childhood friend Coleman Headley, a U.S. citizen who had changed his name from Daood Gilani, a fake cover story so he could travel to Mumbai to scout potential targets for the LeT.
Using the ruse that he was opening a branch of his immigration business in Mumbai, and that Headley was the office manager, Hussain allegedly helped his alleged co-conspirator get an Indian visa.
“Over the course of more than two years, Headley allegedly repeatedly met with Rana in Chicago and described his surveillance activities on behalf of LeT … and LeT’s potential plans for attacking Mumbai,” the U.S. Justice Department wrote.
His arrival in India garnered national headlines, with the National Investigation Agency calling the “mastermind” of the Mumbai attack and a “Canadian national.”
Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca
