National Post (National Edition)
JUDGE CALLS TESTIMONY ‘OUTLANDISH,’ FINDS QUEBEC MAN GUILTY ON TERROR-RELATED CHARGE.
ISMAËL HABIB, 29, CONVICTED OF ATTEMPTING TO TRAVEL TO SYRIA TO COMMIT A TERRORIST ACT
Ismaël Habib wanted the court to believe he was an accidental jihadi who travelled to Syria in 2013 out of “curiosity” and took no part in the fighting. He never heard a single gunshot while there, he testified, comparing the experience to summer camp.
And when Habib began arranging for a return trip in 2016, he said it was because he was worried about the security of his wife and two small children there.
On Monday, Quebec Court Judge Serge Délisle dismissed 29-year-old Habib’s testimony as “outlandish,” saying it was “destroyed by contradictions and weighed down by elements of dishonesty and lies.” He found Habib guilty of attempting to travel to Syria to commit a terrorist act, a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Instead of accepting Habib’s sworn testimony, the judge believed another version of events that an unsuspecting Habib offered in February, 2016, to an undercover RCMP officer.
Habib, who was living in Gatineau, Que., at the time of his arrest, had first come to the attention of police after the 2013 trip to Syria, which led to the cancellation of his passport.
His trial heard how police then lured him into a so-called Mr. Big operation, making him believe he was dealing with a criminal organization capable of providing false passports and smuggling him and other jihadis out of Canada by ship.
In a meeting captured on video and played for the court, he told an undercover officer posing as a Québécois crime boss that he dreamed of living under the rule of ISIL, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
He told the supposed crime boss he wanted “to do as much as I can to help the Islamic State, in all ways, financially, physically or dying for them — whatever they need.”
He explained: “We love death like you love life.” He added that he wanted to pay off all his debts before leaving for Syria because if he died in debt, he would be denied entry to paradise and the 72 virgins awaiting him there.
Habib also said that on his previous trip to Syria, he and his brother-in-law had joined up with some Chechen jihadis. Photos entered as evidence show Habib in combat attire with a knife on his belt, and he acknowledged buying an AK-47 assault rifle. He said at one point he personally whipped a captured soldier from a rival faction.
Habib told the undercover officer his form of jihad involves fighting to establish Shariah law in the Middle East, not attacking civilians in the West. “That’s not my style,” he said. But he did applaud the November, 2015, Paris attacks that killed 130 people, saying they were deserved because of French intervention against ISIL.
At trial, Habib testified that he wanted to return to Syria to be reunited with his family. The defence tried to have evidence from the Mr. Big operation thrown out on the grounds Habib’s statements were coerced — the exercise was labelled a “confession trap” — but Délisle said there was no violence or coercion.
The judge found that even if the prospect of seeing his family influenced Habib’s desire to travel to Syria, his main motivation was religious conviction. “In his religion, one must live in a Muslim country that applies Shariah,” the judge wrote.
Habib was arrested in Gatineau after his girlfriend went to police saying he had threatened to blow up her car with her and her child inside if she told anyone of his travel plans.
The woman, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, testified that Habib watched violent ISIL videos every day and tried to persuade her to fully veil herself. Analysis of his computer found Internet searches on jihad, the Islamic State, ways of leaving Canada illegally, how to treat a gunshot wound and how to breathe in a shipping container.
Habib, who last month was found guilty of providing false information to obtain a passport, has been in custody since his arrest. A sentencing hearing is set for Aug. 17.
He becomes just the third Canadian convicted since the Criminal Code was amended in 2013 to make it illegal to leave or attempt to leave the country to participate in terrorist activity. A young offender from Montreal was convicted of the offence in 2015, and last year Carlos Larmond of Ottawa pleaded guilty and was sentenced to seven years in prison.
WEIGHED DOWN BY ELEMENTS OF DISHONESTY AND LIES.