A Toronto delivery driver accused of dismembering a prisoner in Iraq nearly a decade ago has become the prime suspect. ISIS The MP will face war crimes charges in Canada.
An indictment filed in Ontario court charges Ahmed Fouad Mostafa Eldidi with four counts, including torture and murder, under the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act.
The alleged incidents occurred during the height of ISIS, in 2014 and 2015. Three years later, Eldidi flew to Toronto and took a trip. application for refugee status this was accepted. He is now a Canadian citizen.
Global News revealed Last summer, Eldidi, a former Amazon driver from Egypt, was allegedly seen in a 2015 ISIS video using a sword to cut off a prisoner’s hands and feet.
“This is the first national security investigation in which war crimes charges have been laid in Canada,” the Ontario RCMP spokesperson said Tuesday.
The charges are groundbreaking for Canada, said Professor Michael Nesbitt, associate dean of research at the University of Calgary’s faculty of law and a leading expert on national security law.
“It’s a big deal,” he said.
To his knowledge, Canadian prosecutors have never used the war crimes law against a suspect for alleged crimes committed on Islamic State territory, he said.
Instead, Canada has primarily used war crimes laws for expulsions and citizenship revocations. In 2021, a resident of British Columbia pleaded guilty to war crimes for inciting hatred against the inhabitants of the Katanga region in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Eldidi has already been charged with aggravated assault in connection with the alleged incident in Iraq, as well as terrorism for what the RCMP said was a disrupted ISIS attack plot in Toronto.
But five months later, the Crown laid more substantial war crimes charges, alleging the 62-year-old had committed mutilation and “outrages upon personal dignity” during armed conflict.
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The victim is not named in the indictment, obtained by Global News, but is described as a “protected person in a non-international armed conflict.”
The RCMP said the investigation was led by the Greater Toronto Integrated National Security Team. The charges were approved on December 11 by George Dolhai, Deputy Attorney General of Canada.
Eldidi “appeared in court yesterday and is in custody,” RCMP said.
ISIS has committed countless atrocities in Syria and Iraq, including genocide of the Yazidisbut in 2019 it lost the rest of its territory to Kurdish fighters backed by an international military coalition.
Since then there has been little progress justice against ISIS members, including in Canada, where only a handful of those who returned home after serving in the group have been prosecuted.
The majority of Canadian ISIS women who returned to British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec were arrested under peace bonds that restrict their movements but do not constitute a criminal charge.
Eldidi’s alleged crimes were filmed in four minutes video published in 2015 by the Islamic State branch in northwest Iraq. Titled “Deterring Spies,” it shows a prisoner confessing before being led outside to a deserted area.
The prisoner is then shown hanging from a cross while a man wearing an ISIS hat cuts off his appendages with a sword. Prosecutors said the man wielding the sword was Eldidi.
Despite his alleged past in Iraq, Eldidi was able to travel to Toronto Pearson Airport in 2018. His asylum application was accepted by the Immigration and Refugee Board and he became a citizen in May.
However, following subsequent information from French authorities, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the RCMP National Security Unit launched an investigation.
Police arrested Eldidi and her son Mostafa, 27, after allegedly recording a video in which they held an ax and machete and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State terrorist group.
The case raised questions about gaps in Canada’s immigration security screening system. The government defended its actions but said it was reviewing the matter.
“The review is ongoing and more information will be communicated as it becomes available,” Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said in a statement last month.
To a Standing Committee on Public and National Security audience in August, Conservative MP Melissa Lantsman questioned how “someone like this, who is a suspected ISIS terrorist” could have obtained citizenship.
“Do you really think this is how the system should work? Do you really think this is not a colossal failure of your government? she said.
The number of investigations linked to ISIS has jumped across Canada, with 20 suspects arrested this year and last year, compared to only two in 2022.
Police and experts say it is young people who are behind the rise in IS activity as the terror group recovers from its defeat in Syria in 2019.
Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca
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