What legal options did authorities have to prevent Edmonton attack?
On Tuesday morning, Abdulahi Hasan Sharif made his first appearance in an Edmonton court for an alleged weekend rampage that’s being treated as an act of terrorism.
Sharif is accused of ramming a police officer with a car, stabbing the officer multiple times, and then trying to run down pedestrians in a UHaul van, hitting four people. Miraculously, nobody was killed.
Though Sharif does not currently face formal terrorism charges, he is facing five counts of attempted murder and other charges related to dangerous driving and possessing a weapon. But police found an ISIL flag in his vehicle and had been tipped off in 2015 that Sharif was “espousing extremist ideologies.”
Questions remain about why Sharif was allegedly able to attempt this attack if police had already been warned about him. The RCMP, which is running the current investigation, is providing very few details, but here are a few of the outstanding issues.
What options did police have in 2015 besides arresting Sharif ?
Canadian authorities have increasingly used peace bonds to restrain people who are thought to be terrorist sympathizers, but who haven’t done enough to justify an arrest. In these cases, a judge can issue a court order that imposes conditions such as restrictions on movement or a ban on using computers.
In July 2015, anti-terrorism legislation passed by Stephen Harper’s Conservative government took effect and lowered the threshold required for law enforcement to get a peace bond. Instead of needing reasonable grounds for believing someone “will” commit a terrorism offence, they instead needed reasonable grounds only that they “may” commit an offence.
It is not clear whether that lower threshold was in place when police investigated Sharif. Neither the RCMP nor the office of Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale will say when in 2015 the investigation occurred or under what legal regime it took place. But even if the investigation took place under the old rules, police could have reopened it when the new rules kicked in.
However, RCMP Assistant Commissioner Marlin Degrand has said that Sharif and others were extensively interviewed at the time. “At the end of that exhaustive investigation, there was insufficient evidence to pursue terrorism charges or a peace bond,” he said.
And while new national security legislation was introduced this spring by Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government, it keeps the lowered threshold required to obtain a peace bond.
If Sharif held extremist views, how was he able to obtain refugee status?
Sharif is of Somali descent and arrived at a regulated Canadian border crossing from the United States in 2012 and claimed asylum, according to Goodale.
Later that year, the Immigration and Refugee Board granted him convention refugee status in Canada, which someone gets if they’re unable to return to their home country because of a “well-founded fear of persecution.”
The Safe Third-Country Agreement between Canada and the United States means a refugee claimant normally needs to make their claim in the country in which they first arrived. However, there are exceptions for which Sharif may have qualified, such as having family members in one of the countries.
Goodale has insisted the refugee process functioned properly in 2012, and that there simply wasn’t any information available that would have flagged Sharif as a terrorist sympathizer.
“The procedures that are in place ... are procedures that place a very high opinion on public safety and security,” Goodale said Monday. He said officials check Canadian and international records to ensure there is no history of criminal activity or immigration violations that should prevent entry into Canada.