Canada: Where ex-bikies go to hide out. Photo: Wikipedia
The world of motorcycles is full of
bizarre stories, but few are as odd as
the tale of Stevan Utah, the former
bikie informant who’s hiding out in
Canada, and now suing the government.
It’s like something straight out of
South Park
Going back, the story starts with Utah doing informant work on the Bandidos outlaw motorcycle gang, in Australia. This was in the mid-2000s, and Utah supposedly fed the police some gold intel (or that’s the way it was told to 7News, anyway). Unfortunately for him, some stories in the press about a leak in the club made Utah’s bikie pals suspicious, so they delivered the customary beat-down (Utah says he survived because he was in good physical shape and fled the beating, and the bikies were too fat to keep up. Or so his story goes).
Anyway, after much ballyhoo, Utah managed to get himself declared the first-ever refugee from the country of Australia, and accepted into Canada on that basis. But, it took 10 years.
As a result, Utah’s now suing the government of Canada for $12,850,000 CAD, saying the delay was a wilful attempt to draw out the process so he’d just return to Australia. And, he’s claiming that after issues with housing, lost income and so on, he’s owed the millions.
Who knows where it’ll lead, but this has been dragging on a while now, and is not going away soon (unless the government settles out of court). The trial is set for June, and will no doubt grab headlines then.