Canadian fabricated terrorism tale

In exchange for the admission, officials dropped criminal charges against him, writes Ian Austen

ACanadian man admitted in court on Friday that he made up tales about being an Islamic State fighter and executioner in Syria. In exchange, Canadian authorities dropped criminal charges against him of perpetrating a hoax involving the threat of terrorism.

The man, Shehroze Chaudhry, had spread fabricated stories of life as a terrorist in Syria on social media beginning in 2016, according to an agreed statement of facts between prosecutors and the defence.

He then repeated them to several news outlets, including The New York Times, which then amplified his tales, the statement said.

Mr Chaudhry, who is now 26, had come to regret giving interviews to the news media and “wanted to finish school and turn his life around”, the statement said.

Prosecutors agreed to drop the charges because Mr Chaudhry’s tales “were mistakes borne out of immaturity — not sinister intent and certainly not criminal intent”, his lawyer, Nader R Hasan, wrote in an email.

Mr Chaudhry was, however, required to post a so-called peace bond for US$10,000 (about 338,000 baht), which would be forfeited if he violates terms of the deal. The prosecutor was not immediately available for comment.

Under the name Abu Huzayfah, Mr Chaudhry, who lives in the Toronto suburb of Burlington, Ontario, was the central figure in the Times’ 10-part podcast series Caliphate.

The release of that series in 2018, and other reports based on Mr Chaudhry’s tales, created a political firestorm in Canada’s Parliament among opposition parties that repeatedly attacked Prime

Minister Justin Trudeau’s government for seeming to allow a terrorist killer to freely roam the streets of suburban Toronto.

But in truth, there was little to no risk to the public. The statement of facts presented in the Ontario Court of Justice in Brampton on Friday concluded: “Mr. Chaudhry has never entered Syria nor participated in ISIS operations anywhere in the world.”

Last year, Mr Chaudhry was arrested in Canada on charges that he perpetrated a hoax that terrified and

Journos were too dismissive of the lack of corroboration of essential aspects of the man’s account. DANIELLE RHOADES HA NEW YORK TIMES SPOKESPERSON

threatened the public. After his arrest, the Times reexamined the Caliphate

series and found “a history of misrepresentations by Mr Chaudhry and no corroboration that he committed the atrocities he described in the Caliphate podcast.”

The podcast did not hold up, the Times said.

The reexamination of the series found that “Times journalists were too credulous about the verification steps that were undertaken and dismissive of the lack of corroboration of essential aspects of Mr Chaudhry’s account,” said Danielle Rhoades Ha, a spokesperson for the Times.

“Since that time, we’ve introduced new practices to prevent similar lapses,” she said.

In 2019, Caliphate won an Overseas Press Club prize and a Peabody Award. The Overseas Press Club rescinded its award, and the Times returned the Peabody. The Pulitzer Prize Board also rescinded its recognition of the podcast as a finalist.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police interviewed Mr Chaudhry in April 2017 — a year before the Caliphate podcast — based on information about his social media postings. At that time, he told them he had made up his tales of being an Islamic State fighter in Syria.

Despite that admission to police, he continued to portray himself in news media interviews and on social media as a former Islamic State fighter almost up to his arrest in September of last year.

The statement of facts presented in court on Friday said a Times journalist, Rukmini Callimachi, pushed Mr Chaudhry to spin his false narrative.

“At times during the podcast, Ms. Callimachi expressly encouraged Mr. Chaudhry to discuss violent acts,” the statement says. “When Mr. Chaudhry expressed reluctance to do so, she responded, ‘You need to talk about the killings.’”

Mr Chaudhry’s trial on the terrorist hoax charges was scheduled to begin in February. Prosecutors agreed to drop the charges in exchange for his confession, as well as his consent to post the peace bond and abide by its conditions.

Under the terms of the peace bond, which is reserved for people who the authorities fear may commit terrorist acts, Mr Chaudhry must remain in Ontario for the next year and live with his parents.

He is prohibited from owning any weapons, must continue to receive counselling and is required to report any changes in his virtual or physical addresses to police.

Instagram posts starting in 2016 — made under Mr Chaudhry’s name and posted along with an identifiable photograph of his face — said Mr Chaudhry had travelled to Syria in 2014 and been made part of the Islamic State group’s Amniyat section, a wing responsible for internal security, “for a bit less than a year.”

“I’ve been on the battlefield,” the posts said. “I support the brothers fighting on the ground.”

All the while, however, Mr Chaudhry had been at his family’s home in Burlington or working at a restaurant it owns in neighbouring Oakville, Ontario.