Peace bond target denies terror links
Crown argues he twice visited ISIL territory
The latest target of Canada’s terrorism peace bond system insisted he has no connection to extremist violence and turned up at a B.C. police station to complain about press coverage of his case.
“I throw your newspaper in the garbage,” Khalid Ahmad Ibrahim, 39, told a reporter at the door of a New Westminster, B.C. apartment. “There is no terrorism,” he added.
The RCMP told the provincial court on Dec. 8 there were “reasonable and probable grounds to believe … that Khalid Ahmad Ibrahim may commit a terrorism offence.”
He was released on $1,000 bail and must adhere to 25 bail conditions, including not accessing or viewing any materials related to a terrorist group. He was due back in court Dec. 20.
Peace bonds are not a criminal charge but rather impose conditions on the conduct of those subjected to them. Police have been using them to control suspected violent extremists.
On Thursday, an Ontario judge imposed 17 peace bond conditions on a Windsor man, Mohammed El Shaer, after the Crown argued he had twice visited ISIL territory in Syria.
Meanwhile in Ottawa, Tevis Gonyou-McLean, arrested on an ISIL-related peace bond in August and released on bail, was arrested once again on Tuesday for six alleged violations of his bail conditions. He was to appear in court Friday at 1:30 p.m.
Ibrahim’s former landlady, one of three individuals he has been ordered not to contact, said he had rented a basement suite from her for about seven months.
She said she believed Ibrahim was from Kurdistan and that he had worked as a painter. Two of her other tenants had complained that Ibrahim talked loudly and that he would bang on the walls, she said.
The landlady said her former tenant suffered from mental health problems, which seemed to intensify after his father passed away. She said he would cut the grass and clean the gutters without being asked to do so.
Police interviewed her a few months ago, she said. They wanted to know everything about Ibrahim. She said she didn’t have all that much to say and that he had always been respectful to her.
A few days ago, the police called her again to inform her of his release on bail. She said it was a mystery to her why he was considered a threat. Ibrahim was charged in July with uttering threats.
On Thursday, Ibrahim walked into the lobby of the New Westminster police station and accused the National Post of following him. He then accused police of spreading his name to the media.
For several minutes, Ibrahim spoke to a dispatcher from a lobby phone and complained about a Postmedia article about his case. “What kind of terrorism?” he was overheard saying.
He mentioned he had suffered mental health problems over the summer. He also indicated that he was carefully following his bail conditions.
An officer took Ibrahim into an interview room to speak to him privately. Ibrahim emerged a few minutes later and left the station. The officer told a National Post reporter, who happened to be at the police station at the time, Ibrahim had requested that the media stop trying to reach out to him.
Some of Ibrahim’s other bail conditions include not possessing any weapons; not leaving his home from 6 p.m. to 7 a.m.; surrendering his passport; not accessing the Internet; and wearing a GPS monitoring system if requested by his bail supervisor.