A Toronto man violated two Canadian counterterrorism laws when he traveled to Syria and joined an ISIS sniper team, the RCMP alleged in a top-secret document released by the Ontario court.
In the document, the RCMP told a judge that Muhammad Ali left Canada to join ISIS in 2014 and participated in the extremist group’s activities, both terrorist offenses.
“Ali used his social media to promote ISIS propaganda and recruit for ISIS,” Bill Bentley, a member of the RCMP Toronto Integrated National Security Enforcement Team, wrote in the document.
“Ali served as a sniper for ISIS.”
Ali, a 31-year-old Canadian citizen, grew up in Mississauga, Ontario, after emigrating with his parents from Pakistan. He attended Ryerson University and worked in northern British Columbia before crossing into Syria in April 2014.
He was captured by US-backed Kurdish fighters in 2018 and is still being held in Syria, but the document shows that charges are likely awaiting him should he return to Canada.
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Ali and his wife, Rida Jabbar, are among more than a dozen Canadian adults detained in prisons and camps in northeastern Syria by suspected ISIS members and their families.
The Liberal government has refused to repatriate Canadian detainees from the region, and a House of Commons petition urging Ottawa to bring them home, launched by Jack Letts’ father, has garnered little public support.
The details of Ali’s investigation from the RCMP were sealed by the court when presented by the police in October 2019, but can now be reported after Global News requested his public release.
They show that while the RCMP has been investigating Canadian ISIS members captured on the battlefield, it has relied in part on the work of journalists rather than sending its officers to Syria.
After Global News interviewed Ali in Syria in 2018, the RCMP obtained a production order from the Ontario Superior Court that required the news outlet to hand over raw recordings of the interview.
Global News challenged the production order in court. But after losing a related case, in which the RCMP searched for Global News interview recordings with ISIS member Mohammed Khalifa, the news organization did not pursue the matter.
However, Global News was able to secure public release of a redacted version of the 28-page summary of the investigation that was used to obtain the production order.
It shows that the RCMP investigation began in July 2014 with a report of a “potential high-risk traveler,” the term for someone who “travels abroad for terrorist purposes.”
The investigation focused on posts that began to appear on Twitter on June 28, 2014, under the name Abu Turaab, who claimed that he was “stationed near Raqqah,” the capital of ISIS in Syria.
On July 11, 2014, Abu Turaab changed his Twitter username to Abu Turaab al-Kanadi, Arabic for “the Canadian,” and began posting ISIS propaganda, the RCMP alleged.
According to the publications, Abu Turaab was classified by the RCMP as “a threat related to the national security of Canada”.
The RCMP’s Internet Tactical Operational Support unit linked the name Abu Turaab to the Skype account of a Mississauga resident and positively identified Ali through a “driver’s license inquiry,” the court document said.
Photos Ali had posted online months before leaving Canada led police to Fort Nelson, BC, where he allegedly worked for a Calgary-based company that services oil wells.
A Twitter post calling for terrorist attacks in Canada. The RCMP has linked the account to Canadian Muhammad Ali.
Abu Turaab was identified as a Canadian citizen named Muhammad Ali from Mississauga, Ontario. that he was promoting pro-ISIS propaganda, ”wrote the RCMP in its request for an injunction.
“This identification came as a result of RCMP’s analysis of many similar Twitter accounts and nicknames, as well as other social networking sites that were also used by Ali.”
Between 2010 and 2015, he used eight Twitter accounts, including @AlTuraab, @FatherofDuust and @ 4buTuraabIS, the RCMP alleged.
A “suspicious transaction report” from FINTRAC, Canada’s Financial Transaction and Report Analysis Center, also showed that Ali made three money transfers by email totaling $ 3,300, the RCMP alleged.
The latest occurred weeks after his departure from Canada, according to the court document. The recipients of the transfers were not indicated in the RCMP document.
The affidavit was sealed by a judge after the RCMP argued that it should be classified as “Top Secret” because it contained information about Canada’s national security.
“I believe that the disclosure of the information in this affidavit would compromise the nature and scope of this investigation and other investigations, nationally and internationally,” he said.
Each of the possible charges listed by the RCMP carries a maximum sentence of 10 years.
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More than three years after being captured, Ali is among four Canadians held by the Syrian Democratic Forces. At least nine Canadian women and their children are also detained in camps for ISIS families.
Canada has repatriated two children to date, as well as a woman. She was arrested by the RCMP on a terrorism bond of peace upon arrival at the airport on November 22, but was later released.
Otherwise, the government has refused to repatriate the detainees, arguing that the region is not safe for Canadian officials.
On October 4, the United States took custody of one of the Canadian detainees, Mohammed Khalifa. He was flown to Virginia, where he pleaded guilty on December 10 to carrying out executions for ISIS and narrating its propaganda videos.
The RCMP had also served Global News with a production order for a copy of his interview with Khalifa, conducted in Syria in 2019. Global News objected to the seizure of his materials, but an Ontario judge ruled against the agency. news.
In 2018, Vice News was ordered similarly to give the RCMP his correspondence with the late Calgary ISIS member Farah Shirdon after unsuccessfully appealing the matter to the Supreme Court.
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Reference-globalnews.ca