He helped save a police officer in a knife attack. He's being deported anyway

A Toronto man who rushed to the aid of a police officer during a knife attack two years ago is facing removal from Canada and pleading for the government to reconsider — saying if he's forced to return to Uganda, he'll face arrest or worse due to his bisexuality.

Bonifance Muwonge, 43, could be deported in a matter of days if no one intervenes, despite helping to save the life of a police officer who had been stabbed in the neck. He'll also likely be called to testify at a possible trial.

CBC News cannot report when and where the stabbing took place, nor provide details of the possible trial, because of a publication ban surrounding the case. 

Nevertheless, the situation has left Muwonge questioning how someone who risked his safety for an officer and is willing to help play a role in the judicial process could be forced out of the country. 

"They should give me a chance.… If I didn't love this country I wouldn't bother to help the police," Muwonge told CBC News.

"I'm not a danger to this country, I'm not a criminal."

According to a letter from Toronto police corroborating his story, Muwonge was living in the basement of a home at the time, when a resident on an upper floor attacked an officer. 

The letter, seen by CBC News, outlines how Muwonge heard the commotion and went upstairs to help, adding the officer has since recovered from his injuries. 

"Mr. Muwonge has demonstrated to me that he is a person that supports the Canadian criminal justice system, and I would like to make this information known to the person examining his permanent residence request," a Toronto police detective sergeant wrote in the letter.

Muwonge told CBC News he had just come home from working a night shift, and was getting some sleep before going to his second job, when he heard a scuffle.

He says he rushed upstairs and saw an officer bleeding from the neck as another officer yelled for Muwonge to get a towel. He ran back to get one and then applied pressure to the wound, before the officer was rushed to hospital. 

At the time of the stabbing, Muwonge had been in Canada for about three years, having fled from Uganda, where he says he faced persecution for being bisexual. 

According to a 2021 report by Amnesty International, the east African country's penal code criminalizes consensual same-sex conduct, and members of the community frequently face violence and arbitrary arrest.

Muwonge says that discrimination is what prompted him to flee the country in 2018 and seek asylum in Canada.