BURNABY – A border officer tasked with deporting a Mexican woman who hanged herself at Vancouver’s airport broke down in tears at a coroner’s inquest when a lawyer suggested the inmate was distressed about being sent back home.
Raman Vandher, with the Canada Border Services Agency, says 42-year-old Lucia Vega Jimenez calmly accepted the information about going back to Mexico when she signed travel documents on Dec. 18, 2012.
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Two days later, Jimenez was found hanging in a holding cell at the airport and later died in hospital.
Vandher says she has since received mental health training that taught her people often present no signs they may attempt suicide.
Jimenez was arrested for transit fare evasion nearly three weeks before being taken into the custody of the Canada Border Services Agency.
The inquest has heard the 42-year-old hotel worker feared she might die by gang torture if returned to Mexico and that she had missed a deadline for submitting a document that would have given her a chance to fight the deportation.
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