Canada has deported a man who posed as a Canadian for years, describing him as a Russian spy who used a fake birth certificate to create a false identity and accumulate three Canadian passports.

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said yesterday that the man, who acquired passports in the name of Paul William Hampel, had left Canada for Russia. "As this case demonstrates, individuals who do not respect our laws and threaten the safety of our communities are not welcome in Canada," Day said in a statement.

Canadian authorities arrested Hampel last month as he tried to leave Canada, and accused him of being an undercover Russian agent and a threat to Canadian security. He was carrying the fake birth certificate, the equivalent of C$7,800 ($6,700) in five different currencies, three cell phones and five SIM cards, which store a cell phone's information, when he was detained at a Montreal airport. The man, whose real identity has never been disclosed, initially denied he was Russian, and his lawyers said he would fight Canada's deportation order. But he did not contest a government move early this month that led to his deportation, and told his lawyers he wanted to return to Russia.

Most of the evidence in the case has remained sealed by court order, although the government has said Mr Hampel lived under a false identity for more than 10 years, all the while working as a member of Russia's Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki foreign intelligence service. He was never charged with a criminal offense.

A Canadian intelligence agent testified that the SVR routinely dispatches "illegals" - elite agents who develop false identities - to operate clandestinely in other countries.