ONGOING MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES: PARTNER
Sharif was held at the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego while he awaited an immigration judge’s decision on his future. He later told his partner that it was a terrifying ordeal. Sharif “frightens from prison or anywhere close to police officers” because of his time in Somalia, she told Postmedia, and being detained made him feel “sick.”
On Sept. 22, 2011, a U.S. immigration judge ordered Sharif deported to Somalia, and Sharif waived his right to appeal that decision, according to ICE.
Postmedia requested a copy of the immigration judge’s decision under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act and received a one-page, redacted summary of Judge Zsa Zsa Depaolo’s order. It did not include any reasons why Sharif was ordered deported, or information on whether he made an asylum claim. The Safe ThirdCountry Agreement between the U.S. and Canada typically requires a refugee claimant to make their claim in the country in which they first arrived, though there are exceptions.
Instead of being deported immediately, Sharif was released on an order of supervision due to the “lack of likelihood of his removal in the reasonably foreseeable future,” ICE said in a statement. The U.S. was not deporting people to Somalia at the time because the African nation had no recognized government, and a U.S. court decision prevents the government from indefinitely holding people in immigration detention.
Under the order, Sharif was to report to ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations in San Diego on Jan. 24, 2012. He never showed, and ICE could not locate him. An ICE spokesperson would not confirm whether Sharif requested permission to travel within the U.S. while under supervision.
According to his partner, Sharif had by that point travelled to Buffalo, N.Y., to try his luck in Canada, but she did not know much about his time there.
Abdala Mohamed, who at the time worked with refugees in Buffalo, said he was contacted by the FBI a few days after Sharif ’s arrest. He wasn’t sure if Sharif had given him as a contact, or how the FBI might have gotten his name.
Mohamed said he was working with refugees at the time, and helped so many people he doesn’t remember many of them. He would direct people to services in the community — including Vive La Casa, a shelter for people awaiting refugee claim appointments with Canadian immigration officers.
A spokesperson for Vive La Casa said it was not able to provide information about whether Sharif stayed there.
“They asked me a bunch of questions and I answered,” Mohamed said of his interview with the FBI at a truck stop near Buffalo. “The bottom line is I don’t know him.”
Maureen Dempsey, a spokeswoman with the FBI’s Buffalo office, said she could not comment on whether Mohamed was interviewed.
NO RED FLAGS
A Canada Border Services Agency spokesperson said Sharif crossed into Canada in 2012 and was found to be a refugee later that year.
The agency would not confirm exactly when and where Sharif entered the country. But Postmedia has learned Sharif crossed into Canada on Jan. 9, 2012, at the Fort Erie, Ont., port of entry.
After Sharif ’s arrest, federal Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said he was a convention refugee — a person who is not able to return to their home country because of a “well-founded fear of persecution.” There was no information about him that would have raised any red flags, Goodale said.
Sharif was in Ontario for about a year before travelling to Edmonton, his partner said, because there was high demand here for unskilled labour. A spokesperson for Edmonton’s Catholic Social Services said Sharif went to its office in December 2014 for help applying for a work permit, which his partner said he needed in addition to his refugee status.
He was scheduled for a followup meeting three days later, but never showed.
Once in Edmonton, Sharif mostly worked as a labourer. His first job was separating garbage from recycling at a local recycling plant. He then found work as a general construction labourer. Eventually, he started work with a subcontractor, with whom he became friends. His boss allowed him to live in the basement of a house that he owned near 111 Avenue and 116 Street. Sharif ’s most recent work was installing insulation, which took him to cities across Alberta.
The woman met Sharif in 2016 while she was working as a cleaner at a building on St. Albert Trail with a friend of his. When they finished up work at 9:30 p.m., the friend would call Sharif for a ride because they all lived in the Queen Mary Park area.
Sharif and the woman did not get along at first.
“When I first met him, I actually didn’t like him,” his partner recalled. “He felt like someone who doesn’t talk, (a) very awkward kind of person.” The friend, though, insisted Sharif was one of the nicest people he knew.
“I felt the opposite for like three months,” she said. “I sometimes feel like I prefer to take the bus instead of getting his ride.”
After a few months, they warmed to each other. They began hanging out in a group, sometimes at Tim Hortons, and later started dating.
Eventually, Sharif moved from the basement to an apartment in Edmonton’s Prince Rupert neighbourhood, where police descended after his arrest. He would have friends over to play video games, but he was actually spending most of his time at his partner’s thirdfloor apartment near Northgate Centre.
“We did not tell any of our friends about us,” she said. “They knew we are dating but they didn’t know we live together. He had the other place so if anybody comes by, they meet him there.”
She said Sharif is Muslim, but he was never particularly religious. During Ramadan, he would claim to be fasting — a ruse she immediately saw through. She liked to go to the mosque on Fridays, but he usually resisted.
“He would be like, ‘Why would I have to go and sit between all these people. If I want to pray I want to pray at home,’” she said. “And he would not pray at home.”
‘ESPOUSING EXTREMIST IDEOLOGIES’
Sharif first came to the attention of Canadian law enforcement in 2015. The day after Sharif ’s arrest, Alberta RCMP assistant commissioner Marlin Degrand said he had been investigated for “espousing extremist ideologies” in 2015, but that there was not enough evidence to continue the investigation.
Degrand did not go into details about what Sharif is alleged to have done.
The day after the attack, however, an unnamed former co-worker of Sharif ’s told the CBC that he had expressed support for violent extremists years before. The person claimed that while the two worked together on a construction site in the summer of 2015 Sharif held “genocidal beliefs” and had “major issues with polytheists.” He also alleged Sharif talked about hating Shia Muslims and expressed support for the so-called Islamic State.
The source said they reported Sharif to Edmonton police, who sent it to the RCMP. Investigators with the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET) later interviewed Sharif at K Division headquarters in Edmonton.
Accord, the Somali human rights advocate, was frustrated because the RCMP did not seem to connect Sharif with mental health services or community groups after its investigation.
“They deemed that he was not a threat to society,” he said. “They still could have (reached) out to some people that could help.”
He said Sharif wasn’t well known among Edmonton’s wider Somali community, around whom he was especially careful to hide his mental health issues.
“I asked him why he didn’t seek help ... he said if his mental condition leaked out he may not be employable.”
Accord was also frustrated by what he sees as a rush to judgment by police, politicians and media to refer to the events as terrorism.
“He’s sick, and he should be treated as a sick person,” Accord said. “However angry (we are) with his actions, his mental capacity wasn’t (in the) right place.”
‘I USED TO DRIVE THAT CAR’
Sharif’s partner said their relationship began to deteriorate in the summer of 2017. He had recently lost a job, and was frustrated with travel paperwork issues. His mother was ill and he wanted to travel to Kenya and see her, but couldn’t because his travel document was about to expire. His behaviour became erratic — especially at night. Oftentimes, the next morning he wouldn’t remember what had happened.
“He used to have so many panic attacks all the time, he used to have less sleep,” she said. “I actually felt he was out of control. I told him he really needs to go and see a doctor, because he would scare me.”
Sharif never did go to a doctor. She last saw him in the middle of September at a restaurant in Edmonton, where she met him to collect a tablet computer. By that point, she had already taken his key to her apartment.
She was working as a housekeeper at a work camp near Fort McMurray when she heard what happened in Edmonton. A coworker told her about it during lunch break the following day.
“He’s like, ‘There was a terrorist attack, there’s this terrorist guy who hit a police officer and all that,’” she said. She hates hearing about terrorists, she said, because “they made our life miserable back home.” She asked if anyone was killed and tried to put it out of her mind.
“And he said, ‘No’ and I’m like, ‘thank God,’” she said.
But she started to grow uneasy. At some point, someone showed her a YouTube video of the scene and she saw the white Malibu.
“I used to drive that car, so I could know the car without even seeing the plate number,” she said. “So what I started doing was calling (Sharif ’s) number. It was just ringing and no answer. I called, I did everything, I even called his friends, they didn’t know anything about it.”
A few days later, she managed to visit him via video link. She said he was confused, and didn’t seem to know what had happened.
“When I first saw his face he was so scared,” she said. He had convinced himself she would stay away from him after what had happened. But she did her best to calm him down.
“I was trying to make everything seem like he did nothing,” she said. “So I’m like ‘Everything ’s going to be OK, you haven’t done anything, everything’s going to be fine.’ That’s all I could tell him.”
Sharif ’s trial is set for Oct. 15 to Dec. 6, 2019, in Edmonton.
I actually felt he was out of control. I told him he really needs to go and see a doctor, because he would scare me.