Undercover informant encouraged ‘vulnerable’ Canadian ISIS plotter

A Canadian who plotted terrorist attacks in New York City in 2016 was egged on by an undercover informant who told him “they are at war with us” and “they must pay,” according to a court document released Thursday.

After infiltrating the ISIS plot by posing as a co-conspirator, the undercover agent exchanged “inflammatory messages” with the Canadian, Abdulrahman El Bahnasawy, the defence submission argued.

He “continually stoked Mr. El Bahnasawy’s sense of belonging and encouraged Mr. El Bahnasawy to send him money for the attack and finding additional recruits,” the defence lawyers wrote.

“While the undercover’s violent and encouraging comments to Mr. El Bahnasawy no doubt advanced law-enforcement objectives, they also contributed to Mr. El Bahnasawy’s radicalization,” they said.

El Bahnasawy, 20, is scheduled for sentencing next Tuesday.

U.S. prosecutors want a life sentence, while the defence has depicted him as a mentally-ill addict and have asked for a “short period of confinement” so he can return to Canada for treatment.

While prosecutors argue the plot was well underway before the undercover began talking to El Bahnasawy, the defence lawyers pointed to communications they said showed the Canadian was influenced by the informant.

“They must pay … Pay jiziya [tax imposed on non-Muslims] or pay with their blood … Akhi [brother] I know more than you’ll believe … Lets just say I know firsthand. They are at war with us,” the undercover wrote on April 30, 2016.

“They’ve been bombing us for decades. They need to feel the wrath. We have the blessed position to strike them from within. How many mujahedeen [holy warriors] wish that they could do what we will do?!” he wrote on May 1, 2016.

“One bomb will have the effect of one thousand soldiers! … The cops bullet proof vests will melt to their kufaar [non-believer] bodies and they won’t be able to stop us! ” he wrote on May 7.

El Bahnasawy was living at home in a Toronto suburb when he began corresponding online with a “high-level ISIS recruiter and attack planner” in Syria, according to prosecutors.

Working with co-conspirators in Pakistan and the Philippines, he planned attacks on the New York subway and Times Square that were to take place in 2016, during the Muslim holy month Ramadan.

But the FBI infiltrated the group, and following an investigation assisted by the RCMP, arrested El Bahnasawy at a hotel on the outskirts of New York in May 2016. He was 18 at the time.

He pleaded guilty to terrorism charges and wrote a letter to the judge explaining that “the West’s destruction of the Islamic system” and “dominance over the world” had led him to “military jihad.”

But his family in Canada has insisted he is struggling with mental illness and addiction, and said he had been in and out of treatment facilities since age 14.

Medical records show that an Egyptian treatment centre diagnosed him with bipolar disorder, “fits of obsession” and psychotic symptoms.

Source: Global News