Villanueva brother's deportation hearing set

The brother of a Montreal teen shot dead by police last year and who is a key witness at the coroner's inquest probing the death faces a spring deportation hearing for armed robbery.

Dany Villanueva, a Honduras national, appeared at Montreal's federal immigration and refugee board on Wednesday morning, where officials set a date of March 11 for his formal deportation hearing.

Wednesday's hearing only lasted a few minutes, long enough for his lawyer to review the evidence against him.

In March, immigration officials will re-evaluate Villanueva's permanent resident status in light of his past arrests for charges including armed robbery committed on Canadian soil.

The 23-year-old pleaded guilty to possessing a revolver and assaulting a teenager for his neck chain in 2005. He was sentenced to 11 months in prison.

Villanueva was also arrested around the same time on separate charges of possessing several weapons, and accused of associating with the Bloods, a notorious street gang.

His lawyer, Stéphane Handfield, said Villanueva has a fighting chance to stay in Canada because his prison sentence was less than two years.

Villanueva near brother when police killed him

Police say they had an outstanding arrest warrant for Villanueva when they confronted him one Saturday night in 2008 in a Montreal North park, where he was hanging out with friends and his younger brother, Fredy, playing dice.

That encounter ended when a police officer fatally shot Fredy, sparking overnight riots in the multicultural borough as news of his death spread through the neighbourhood.

Dany Villanueva is considered one of the most important witnesses to the shooting, which is being investigated by a Quebec coroner in an inquest that began last spring and has been plagued by various delays, but is scheduled to resume on Feb. 2.

The incident aggravated deep-rooted mistrust of police in Montreal North.