generalspeaking

Wednesday, July 17, 2019

Islamist Terrorism as Mental Illness

"It is clear from the reasons of the board and the conduct of the hearing that the board carefully considered all of the required factors in making its disposition regarding the limited indirect supervision privilege and made no error of law. Its decision was not unreasonable."
"The limited extension of indirectly supervised access only to the local college shows that the board was extending only a very limited privilege, both geographically and in terms of time away, that reflected its concern for public safety but balanced with the need to facilitate Mr. Ali's reintegration into society."
Ontario Court of Appeal

The appeal court says the Ontario Review Board considered all the required factors last year in granting Ayanle Hassan Ali permission to attend Mohawk College unaccompanied while he continues to be held at a secure Hamilton hospital. (Toronto Police Service)

"The trial judge was wrong to conclude that section 83.2 (of the Criminal Code) is directed only at associative conduct and is not intended to capture terrorist activity carried out by a ‘lone wolf."
"Parliament’s true purpose was to prevent and punish ‘terrorist activity’ — acts of serious violence committed for a political, religious or ideological purpose, with the intention of intimidating the public."
"Terrorist activity can be committed as readily by an individual — a lone wolf — as it can be by a larger group."
"The trial judge’s approach would erase the distinction between lone wolf terrorists and ordinary criminals."
"Lone wolf terrorists are a serious problem in Canada and abroad, and their recent ‘successes’ may inspire others. In many ways, they are harder to detect and interdict than larger groups. By their solitary nature, lone actors tend to evade the traditional means (e.g. informants, intercepted communications) by which other terrorism plots come to police attention."
"It is dangerous to deprive police and prosecutors of the full array of tools…to investigate and prosecute them."
Crown attorneys documents filed before the Court of Appeal

"While at the scene, the accused stated ‘Allah told me to do this. Allah told me to come here and kill people."
"[He was] unresponsive [with police]."
"I want to be very, very, very careful, when it comes to the national security piece, that we don’t go through that Islamophobia nonsense."
"I don’t want this [to be] categorizing of a large group of people. That would be very unfair and very inaccurate."
Toronto Police Chief Mark Saunders

What is supremely accurate is that 27-year-old Ayanle Hassan Ali entered a military recruitment centre in Toronto in March of 2016, a large knife in hand, taking everyone present by surprise by launching an attack on those present, succeeding in wounding three people before he was overpowered and then subdued, and taken into custody. His intention was not anything but to inflict lethal wounds on those he targeted. He rampaged on behalf of Islamist terrorism.

To describe it as anything less given his actions and accompanying words is to shiver and shake at the prospect of being labelled "Islamophobic".

Charged with attempted murder, assault causing bodily harm and assault with a weapon, along with a charge of carrying a weapon for the benefit of a terrorist group, he was found by an Ontario judge last year to be culpable, but yet not responsible, because of mental illness. Ali carried out the attack, acknowledged the judge, based on his extremist beliefs which were precipitated by mental illness. And in carrying out the attack, the judge also asserted that the man was not in fact acting on behalf of or for the benefit of a terrorist group.

It was, evidently, his mentally injured mind that was at fault. And that, it seems, could be corrected with tender loving care. He has been ensconced in a highly restricted hospital ward. And the Ontario Review Board annually evaluating the status of anyone pronounced to be not criminally responsible to stand trial for criminal offences as a result of suffering mental illness, in their assessment of this man found him a continuing and significant threat to the public, that it would be best for him to remain where he was, in that restricted hospital ward.

And then they more or less reversed their reservation about his threat status by recommending that he be granted increasing privileges. Permission to travel throughout the hospital and grounds as a first step, accompanied by staff. After which an approved companion could accompany him, and then he would graduate to roaming about unaccompanied. Assuming that nothing untoward would occur, Ali could continue the trajectory toward normalization into the community to continue his education by attending Mohawk College.

It was the opinion of the three-judge appeal panel to state it was "not unreasonable" for the board to have banned Ali from military facilities or centres despite the Crown sought more restrictive measures; a prohibition from his having any contact anywhere with military personnel. This was Ali's first annual review, leaving the prosecutors shaking their heads in disbelief at the liberalization of privileges; unreasonable in their view and based on no past record indicating he would be capable of good behaviour.

Yet the Appeal Court appears satisfied that it has more than adequately addressed the issue of public safety. Cleared on the terrorism elements of the original charges, found not criminally responsible on the lesser offences at trial, he is free to get on with his life as though the commission of a terrorist act is of no moment whatever. “I have a license to kill, I have a green light to kill. One soldier is all it takes, just one", reads Ali's diary.