Businessman held in violent prison for 10 months after arrest on visa violation

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MONTREAL - Indian authorities are poised to spring a Montreal businessman from the remote prison he has shared with gangsters and murderers for the past 10 months.

Saul Itzhayek has been held at the Motihari prison in northeast India since his arrest in May on a visa violation.

An Indian appeal court upheld Itzhayek's conviction yesterday, but reduced his sentence to the time he has already served.

He is expected to be handed over to Canadian consular officials as early as today.

"This is the day I dreamed of for so long," said his sister, Sylvia Itzhayek.

Itzhayek's supporters, who include former Liberal justice minister Irwin Cotler, managed to give his case high-profile attention.

Claims that Indian police tricked him into crossing over from Nepal and then demanded a bribe moved Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier to raise the issue with their Indian counterparts.

His case was also taken up pro bono by the law firm of India's former solicitor general, Harish Salve.

The decision to reduce the sentence will be reviewed by a lower court today, according to Cotler's chief of staff, Howard Liebman, who helped co-ordinate legal efforts between the two countries.

"Provided that's officialized by the lower court, he'll be released as early as the end of day," Liebman said.

He described the lower court ruling as a "formality."

Despite Ottawa's high-level intervention, Itzhayek's family has often been frustrated by government efforts to free him.

Though a Canadian consular official was present at yesterday's hearing, Sylvia Itzhayek criticized their absence from her brother's trial last October.

Itzhayek's supporters had been holding out for an executive-level solution, fearing the legal process would be fruitless.

A group of religious leaders from Montreal called on the Conservative government to send an elected representative to the hearing.

The suggestion was rejected out of hand by the government.

"I guess the (Indian) judges felt that the best way to dispose of the matter was to allow his appeal to be heard and allow the court to address the whole picture," said Liebman.