The man, from Pakistan, was carrying an identity card said to belong to a genuine translator.
He was unwittingly used by officers from the North West Counter Terrorism unit to interpret audio tapes in the Afghan dialect of Pashtun - recovered during a house search in March.
Three months after taking sanctuary in a Vancouver church to avoid deportation, former KGB translator Mikhail Lennikov says the saga has taken its toll on his family.
"I see my family struggling a lot," Lennikov said. "It's been very difficult for my wife." Lennikov said he spends his days tending to plants, helping prepare for Sunday service and receiving visits from his wife Irina and son Dmitri.
The U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's 2010 budget report mentions our intelligence agencies' familiar shortage of translators for languages critical to defeating terrorists. If only the Washington blame game on the issue, which 9/11 made urgent, weren't so familiar, too.
