Facebook posts not considered terrorism
A B.C. Supreme Court judge acquitted a Fort St. John man Friday on four terrorism charges related to dozens of Facebook posts he made supporting the Islamic State and lone-wolf attacks.
Justice Bruce Butler ruled that Othman Hamdan’s posts were offensive, but that did not mean that he was encouraging or inciting acts of murder, assault and mischief as alleged by the Crown.
Butler was critical of the RCMP’s method of copying the 85 concerning posts from Hamdan’s 14 Facebook accounts in 2014 and 2015.
The judge said that because the police only took screengrabs of the offending posts, other content that could have provided context to the posts was not preserved.
Hamden took the stand in his own defence and claimed that information that was missing from the screengrabs would prove that he was not advocating terrorism.
Butler said Friday that Hamdan’s testimony left him with a reasonable doubt about whether the 36-year-old intended to incite a violent attack or was just expressing a political viewpoint.
He noted one re-post put up by Hamden appeared to be calling lone wolves to “activate” across the U.S.
When Hamdan was arrested in July 2015, he told police that was the only one of his posts “that’s really bad.”
But Hamdan also told police at the time that he was “against killing innocent people,” Butler said.
Other posts entered into evidence had Hamden praising Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, who attacked Parliament Hill on Oct. 22, 2014, as well as Martin Couture-Rouleau, who drove a car into two Canadian soldiers in Quebec two days before, killing one of them.
“These posts are difficult for the average Canadian to read or understand. This is because Mr. Hamdan expresses support for the actions of lone-wolf terrorists, and the reasons he gives for saluting these actions defy logic,” Butler said. “… However, the posts do not contain statements that could be considered active inducements and encouragement for readers to go and commit similar offences.”
Police began investigating Hamdan in the fall of 2014. He was arrested several months later and charged with three counts of counselling the commission of indictable offences for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with a terrorist organization (ISIS).
He was also charged with one count of directly or indirectly instructing persons to carry out terrorist activities.
Federal prosecutors argued that one of Hamdan’s re-posts was a how-to guide for committing a lone wolf attack.
Hamdan testified that the posts were taken out of context and that the translations from Arabic weren’t accurate.
Butler summarized Hamden’s history at the start of his ruling Friday.
He said Hamden was born in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates to Palestinian parents. As a teen, he was not religious and was attracted to American culture.
In 1999, a the age of 18, he moved to Texas to study. After a year, he went to work in Kentucky, then moved to Michigan and later Massachusetts. His roommate there was from Saudi Arabia and had taken flying lessons. The day after the 9/11 attack, both men were picked up and interrogated for days.
After Hamdan was released, he headed west. He converted to Christianity and decided to come to Canada, and crossed the Peace Arch border in 2002, making a successful refugee claim.
He has since lived in B.C., mostly working in construction until his arrest. He has been in jail ever since.
Hamdan is not a Canadian citizen and may be required to appear at an immigration hearing.