A Canadian who was allegedly “a leading figure” in the ISIS media section has been taken to the United States to face terrorism charges, the U.S. Justice Department said Saturday.
A Canadian who was allegedly “a leading figure” in the ISIS media section has been taken to the United States to face terrorism charges, the U.S. Justice Department said Saturday.
The FBI took custody of Mohamed Khalifa from Kurdish forces in northeast Syria, where he was captured in January 2019, and flew him to the eastern U.S. to stand trial.
The U.S. has accused him of being a fighter and “lead translator in ISIS’s propaganda production and the English-speaking narrator on multiple violent ISIS recruitment videos.”
He was charged with conspiring to provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization, resulting in death.
He faces a possible life sentence if convicted.
A former Toronto resident, Khalifa, also known as Abu Ridwan Al Kanadi, is the first Canadian ISIS member detained by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces to be brought to the U.S. to face justice.
Khalifa was under RCMP investigation, but the Liberal government has refused to bring Canadian ISIS members detained in Syria home for prosecution.
“I’m glad the U.S. had the political courage to do what the Canadian government did not,” said national security law expert Leah West, who interviewed Khalifa along with Global News in 2019.
“He is a Canadian, he left from Canada. It should be the responsibility of the Canadian government to hold him accountable for his crimes,” she said.
“But the Canadian government has proven repeatedly unwilling to hold Canadians who joined ISIS accountable for their crimes by refusing to repatriate them.”
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