Aid worker says Ottawa jihadist initially wanted to help children

Court hears testimony over Maguire link

When John Maguire first got to Syria in December 2012, he was anything but the radical convert seen two years later in the infamous ISIL recruitment video, holding a Kalashnikov and calling for Muslims to wage jihad on Canadian soil.

Instead, Maguire, 24, presented himself as a young convert confused about the different interpretations of Islam and said he wanted to learn Arabic while helping children at the same time, according to the Ottawa aid worker who helped Maguire slip into Syria, got him a gun for protection, and put him up at his apartment for two months.

The Ottawa aid worker met Maguire at the Hatay Airport in Turkey, then took a taxi into Syria. When Maguire said he came to Syria to help and learn Arabic, the aid worker, who is also a successful Canadian businessman, started laughing.

“This is not the right time for tourism. It’s a war zone,” he recalled. “He was new (to Syria) and didn’t know anything.”

These untold details, and more, about Canada’s most notorious ISIL fighter — a white boy from Kemptville, near Ottawa, who grew up playing hockey and punk rock — were revealed in Ottawa court Tuesday at the trial of 28-year-old Awso Peshdary, accused of being the top recruiter and financier for ISIL in Canada.

If federal Crown prosecutors called the businessman to the stand to establish that Peshdary radicalized Maguire, the testimony fell short.

Instead, the key witness testified that Maguire became radicalized after he hit the ground in Syria. ISIL didn’t even exist back then, he told the court under a revealing cross-examination by defence lawyer Solomon Friedman.

The witness said he took Maguire to see an imam and the young convert, now presumed dead, asked a ton of questions.

The Ottawa businessman said he was trying to guide him through the different interpretations of Islam because he didn’t want Maguire to go down the wrong path to “brainwashed” bloody jihad. He tried to persuade Maguire to listen to more moderate interpretations, by more moderate Muslim scholars, and because they were both from Ottawa, the aid worker tried to explain it as locally as he could, saying, “Lowell Green doesn’t speak for all Canadians,” referring to the longtime conservative radio talk-show host in Ottawa.

Maguire looked confused when he first got to Syria and said Muslims were at war in Canada.

The businessman told Maguire: “We are not at war with Canada. In Canada, we’re allowed to grow our beards and practise our religion.”

The Ottawa businessman said Maguire felt like he couldn’t return to Canada because he had been disowned by some of his family after he converted to Islam.

The businessman lost track of Maguire and last saw him in the notorious ISIL recruitment video.

“I felt sorry for him because he ended up going in the wrong path with the brainwashed fanatics,” the businessman testified. “He became very extreme.” The businessman-turnedaid worker also told court that he tried to protect Maguire and that he hooked him up with a gun to defend himself in the chaos of Syria.

“I wanted to make sure he didn’t end up in the wrong hands.”

Peshdary has pleaded not guilty in the terrorism case that was built by an RCMP agent who was paid at least $750,000 to infiltrate his one-time friends. The Mounties hired the informant when he was teetering on bankruptcy and had previously been assessed by CSIS as a parasitic psychopath.

The trial continues and there is a sweeping publication ban on all of the key witnesses.