Recruiting centre accused acquitted
Found not criminally responsible
TORONTO • A man with schizophrenia who attacked soldiers at a military recruitment centre in Toronto was acquitted of terror charges and found not criminally responsible for lesser offences on Monday as a judge ruled his actions didn’t fit the intended scope of the country’s terrorism laws.
Ayanle Hassan Ali’s radical religious and ideological beliefs were largely the result of his mental illness, Judge Ian MacDonnell found as he ordered the 30-year-old to remain at a forensic psychiatry unit while plans for his care could be determined.
“While it is common ground that the defendant had become radicalized, there is no evidence of any connection between him and any other person or group in relation to the attack,” MacDonnell said.
“The intention of Parliament in enacting (the relevant terror legislation) was … not to capture the kind of lone-wolf criminal behaviour engaged in by the defendant,” he added.
Ali’s attack was nonetheless a “deeply disturbing assault on one of the pillars of Canadian peace and security,” MacDonnell said, as he found him not criminally responsible for attempted murder, assault and weapons offences.
At least two military personnel were left with minor injuries after Ali entered the recruiting centre in March 2016 and began slashing at people with a kitchen knife.
Ali had pleaded not guilty to three counts of attempted murder, three counts of assault with a weapon, two counts of assault causing bodily harm and one count of carrying a weapon for the purpose of committing an offence, all in association with, for the benefit, or at the direction of a terror organization.
His lawyers said their client should never have faced terror charges which, by definition, require that the accused commits an offence “for the benefit of, at the direction of or in association with” a terror group.
“This was a case where the Crown overreached,” defence attorney Nader Hasan said outside court. “They had someone who they thought looked the part of the terrorist when, in reality, they had someone who committed a terrible, terrible act who is mentally ill.”
Hasan and his co-counsel Maureen Addie argued that because Ali committed his actions alone and had never been in contact with any terror groups, he should be found not guilty on the terror charges and ruled “not criminally responsible” for the lesser included offences.