CASE SHOWS DIFFICULTY OF PROSECUTING HATE CRIMES IN CANADA
“If someone is wanted in a foreign country, our government needs to know.”
He said the Canadian government had “mechanisms” to inform Bangladesh about fugitives. “I can assure you that the present government led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is against any kind of extremism, terrorism and transnational crime,” he said.
Asked what the Canadian government had done to secure Hossain’s arrest, Global Affairs Canada referred the question to the RCMP, which said an Interpol red notice requesting his arrest had been posted at the request of Canadian authorities.
“However each member country decides for itself what legal value to give a red notice within their borders and therefore the ability to arrest and extradite a subject in a given country is not a guarantee,” said Sgt. Harold Pfleiderer, an RCMP spokesman.
Since Hossain left Canada shortly before the charges were approved, hints of his whereabouts have appeared online. The local Bangla language can be heard in a video posted last September in which he watched men slitting the neck of a goat.
“This is how the evil Yahud (Jews) and their helpers and slaves need to be executed when caught and punished worldwide,” read the post on YouTube. “Daesh have you forgotten your duties to target Israel and important Jews yet?” Daesh is another name for ISIL.
A Facebook user, who said he became a social media acquaintance of Hossain’s before realizing he was wanted by Interpol, said the BangladeshiCanadian used more than a dozen online aliases and claimed he was involved in credit-card hacking. Hossain had talked about moving to Malaysia, said the man, who asked not to be named.
The acquaintance provided an address and phone number he said Hossain had shared with him. The address was for a Dhaka apartment building called the Mayfair. A Toyota similar to Hossain’s was seen parked there.
The man who answered the phone number spoke North American English. When a reporter introduced himself, he said, “You got the wrong dude,” and hung up. He did not respond to questions sent by text and social media.
“We are surprised and concerned that he has not yet been apprehended and turned over to Canadian authorities, particularly since his general whereabouts is known and he continues to call for the death of Jews,” said Shimon Koffler Fogel, CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.
With anti-Jewish and anti-Muslim incidents on the rise, the case shows how difficult it can be to prosecute hate crimes in Canada. Hossain came to the attention of Canadian authorities a decade ago over Internet posts urging “Muslim militants” to attack Canada.
His online incitement prompted visits from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and RCMP, which Hossain said was investigating him. But he continued to advocate extremist violence, particularly against Jews, calling repeatedly for their “extermination.”
Despite complaints from Jewish groups, Ontario’s Attorney-General declined to approve hate crimes charges in 2009 on the grounds Hossain had stopped posting online and was undergoing rehabilitation.
But he soon resumed his campaign, campaigning unapologetically for the Jewish populations of North America and Europe to be “exterminated.” York University expelled him in March 2010. He fled Canada after police opened a new investigation — but before charges were approved.
At the news conference announcing the charges, Vince Hawkes, who was then OPP deputy commissioner and is now commissioner, said police were working with federal and provincial authorities to “examine options with regard to extradition.” He said he had no doubt police would “get him.”
“I recall that it took a very long time for the Attorney General of the day to give the OPP permission to proceed with those charges,” said Julian Fantino, who was the OPP commissioner at the time and later became a Conservative MP and cabinet minister.
The Canadian government should “give immediate priority” to Hossain’s arrest, Fantino added. “The charges against him are extremely serious,” he said, calling Hossain’s provocations a throwback to the Nazi era. “I am extremely disappointed that to date Hossain has not been brought to justice.”
The advocacy group CAIR-Canada (now the National Council of Canadian Muslims) called Hossain’s comments “disgusting” at the time and supported the charges against him, saying they sent “a clear message that speech of this nature will not go unchecked.”
In online posts that appeared under his name last year, Hossain said he had left Canada “in order to organize a revolution and attempt to begin promoting and pushing for a full-blown genocide against the Jewish-owned nations of the Western world.”
He said an “extermination program” was needed to stop Jews and their supporters from labelling Muslims as terrorists.
“I will never stop promoting and attempting to facilitate and organize multiple genocides against the Jews and their allies until Jewish power is permanently decimated.”
WE ARE SURPRISED AND CONCERNED THAT HE HAS NOT YET BEEN APPREHENDED.