High court will hear case on citizenship of Russian spy kids

A high court decision today grants the federal government a chance to fight a Federal Court of Appeal ruling that effectively affirmed the citizenship of Alexander and Timothy Vavilov. (Photo by Alex Guibord/Flickr, CC BY-ND 2.0)

OTTAWA – The Supreme Court of Canada will settle the controversy of whether the Toronto-born sons of Russian spies are actually Canadian citizens.

A high court decision today grants the federal government a chance to fight a Federal Court of Appeal ruling that effectively affirmed the citizenship of Alexander and Timothy Vavilov.

The Vavilov brothers were born in the 1990s to parents using the aliases Donald Heathfield and Tracey Ann Foley.

The parents were arrested eight years ago in the United States and indicted on charges of conspiring to act as secret agents on behalf of Moscow.

In all, 11 people — four of whom claimed to be Canadian — were indicted on charges of conspiring to act as agents in the U.S. on behalf of the SVR, successor to the notorious Soviet KGB.

Heathfield and Foley admitted to being Andrey Bezrukov and Elena Vavilova.