According to CBC News, a Toronto-area woman has received allegations of leaving the country to join a terrorist organization.
The Public Prosecution Service of Canada alleges Haleema Mustafa was leaving Canada to join a terrorist group. She has been charged with two offences related to terrorism. She appears in court this week. She had been arrest by police in Markham, Ontario.
Based on the Criminal Code Section 83.18 of Canada, any participation in terrorist activities of a terrorist group are illegal. These are the charges facing Mustafa. One spokesperson for the RCMP has not commented to the CBC so far.
Ikar Mao, Mustafa’s husband as of December 2019, was charged with two terrorism offences too. He is in custody with a denial of bail. The details of Mao’s case “are covered by a court-ordered publication ban.”
CBC News stated, “The couple left Toronto in June 2019 bound for Turkey. According to Turkish records reviewed by CBC, they were arrested because of fears they were attempting to join the Islamic State in neighbouring Syria.”
Mustafa and Mao were taken in by the Turkish authorities in Sanliurfa. It’s a border town seen previously functioning as “a launch point for foreign nationals looking to cross into Syria to join the Islamic Sate.
The Conservative government of Canada in 2013 (at the time, in other words) amended the Criminal Code of Canada to make attempting to travel or travelling to take part in acts of terrorism illegal, criminal.
“The Islamic State has suffered a series of military setbacks in recent years as a coalition of Western nations and armed fighters in Iraq and Syria has helped to dismantle much of the group’s so-called ‘caliphate,’” CBC said.
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