For Immediate Release - Calgary and Ottawa, 17 August 2015 News that Mikhail Lennikov, an (ex) Captain of the notorious Soviet secret police, the KGB, has "voluntarily" left Canada, after spending several years here claiming to be a refugee, then ignoring a Federal Court deportation order by claiming he had some right to "sanctuary" in a Vancouver church basement, has been greeted with pleasure by the organization most responsible for keeping Lennikov's illegal status in the court of public attention -- the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association (UCCLA). UCCLA's chairman, Roman Zakaluzny, said: "Lennikov had no right to enter Canada. His claim to being a refugee was dismissed by the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, an independent tribunal. When his appeal of that decision was overturned by a Federal Court judge, he decamped into a pre-prepared bolt hole in a Vancouver church, where he claimed a non-existent right to sanctuary, flaunting the rule of law, aided and abetted by people who ignored what the KGB was -- a criminal organization responsible for many crimes against humanity. We have consistently called for Lennikov's removal from our home and native land. Canada has no need to offer KGB men citizenship. UCCLA even offered Lennikov a one-way ticket back to his home town of Vladivostok. He didn't take us up. Instead he apparently went back to Moscow, where another KGB man, Putin, now rules. Lennikov's claim of being fearful that he would be harmed if he returned to 'Mother Russia' was obviously as bogus as his assertion that he was a refugee. We are glad he left and we hope he is gone for good. In our view, he is not welcome to return to Canada, ever. And those other NKVD/SMERSH/KGB men and women still here should also be identified and deported. We'll cover their one-way economy airfares from here to whence they came. Canada is a better place without the likes of a Lennikov."