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"Our reaction is `Here we go again,'" said Irving Abella, national chair of the war crimes committee of the Canadian Jewish Congress, citing two previous deportation cases that ended with the suspects' deaths in the last two years.

"We've been saying for years that we've waited so long to bring suspected war criminals to court that all of them will die of natural causes, not having faced the bar of justice, having lived in this country for 50 years or more in comfort with their families surrounding them," said Abella.

"That's not how we wish to deal with Nazi war criminals."

The government's attempt to deport Nemsila was temporarily thwarted after a federal judge ruled last year that he was protected from deportation by an obscure 1910 law that granted him legal domicile status after five years of residency in Canada.