INTERNATIONAL DRUG TRAFFICKER ORDERED FREED ON DAY PAROLE

Imported Hashish. Sentenced To 11 Years, Sulaymankhil Is Released after
Less Than Two Years

The National Parole Board has granted day parole to one of the country's
biggest drug dealers after serving less than two years of an 11-year,
three-month sentence.

Last November, the board awarded day parole beginning March 1 to
international drug trafficker Abdul Majid Sulaymankhil, 50, despite the
fact he has a "deficient value system and a poor social conscience,"
displays little remorse and "minimizes the seriousness" of his crime, his
parole report says.

Canadian law requires that a convict be released on day parole after
serving one-sixth of his sentence if it is a first offence and there is no
apparent threat of violence.

Parole board member Jacques Letendre noted in his report there is no
reasonable ground to believe Sulaymankhil will commit a violent act.

Critics of the early-parole law claim it makes Canada a haven for drug
dealers who know that if caught they will serve little time in prison.

Sulaymankhil was extradited to Canada from Dubai on March 26, 2002. He
promptly pleaded guilty to importing thousands of pounds of hashish and
laundering about $16 million. He was sent to a federal penitentiary.

Sulaymankhil's 6-foot, 3-inch, 220-pound frame earned him the nickname "The
Mountain Man" among his fellow drug dealers.

Because he is a native of Afghanistan, where his family owns tracts of land
in the drug-producing eastern part of the country, his arrest led to
concerns that his money might have been used to fund terrorism and the
Taliban. Sulaymankhil has denied this.

He obtained landed-immigrant status for himself, his wife and their five
children in 1992 from the Canadian embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The
couple moved to Ontario and, in 1995, became Canadian citizens.

An RCMP investigation into their citizenship application ended when
investigators discovered that Sulaymankhil's file had been lost when the
immigration office in Riyadh moved in 1998 to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab
Emirates.

Sulaymankhil was an important supplier of drugs to international
traffickers, including Ernest Pitt, 45, a Quebecer who was convicted along
with the Mountain Man and 11 others.

In handing down his decision to release Sulaymankhil to a halfway house,
Letendre wrote that the Mountain Man is an "important actor in an
international drug ring, involving several accomplices scattered over the
globe and also involving large sums of money."

Sulaymankhil's arrest was the result of an RCMP investigation involving law
enforcement authorities in India, South Africa, Portugal, Thailand, Dubai,
France and Canada.

Sulaymankhil will be eligible for full parole on Jan. 15, 2006.