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A Toronto delivery driver accused of dismembering a prisoner in Iraq nearly a decade ago has become the first suspect ISIS member who 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 made refugee claim it is accepted. He is now a Canadian citizen.
Global news discovered last summer that Eldidi, an Egyptian-born former Amazon driver, was allegedly seen in a 2015 ISIS video using a sword to cut off the hands and feet of a prisoner.
“This is the first national security investigation that has brought charges of war crimes in Canada,” an Ontario RCMP spokesman said Tuesday.
The accusations are revolutionary for Canada, said Prof. Michael Nesbitt, Associate Dean of Research at the University of Calgary Law School and a leading expert on national security law.
“It’s a big deal,” he said.
As far as he knows, Canadian prosecutors have never before used a war crimes offense against a suspect for alleged crimes committed on Islamic State territory, he said.
Instead, Canada has mostly used war crimes laws to deport and revoke citizenship. 2021 BC resident pleaded guilty war crimes for promoting hatred against the people of the Katanga region in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Eldidi had already been charged with aggravated assault for the alleged incident in Iraq, as well as terrorism charges for what RCMP said was an aborted ISIS attack plot in Toronto.
But five months later, the Crown brought more significant war crimes charges, alleging that the 62-year-old had committed mutilation and “insult to personal dignity” during the armed conflict.
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The victim was not named in the indictment, obtained by Global News, but described as a “protected person in a non-international armed conflict.”
RCMP said the Greater Toronto Integrated National Security Enforcement Team conducted the investigation. The charges were approved on December 11 by George Dolhai, Canada’s deputy attorney general.
Eldidi “was in court yesterday and was remanded in custody,” RCMP said.
ISIS has committed unspeakable atrocities in Syria and Iraq, including genocide against the Yezidisbut in 2019 it lost the last part of its territory to Kurdish fighters with the support of an international military coalition.
Since then, there has been little in the way justice against ISIS members, including in Canada, where only a handful of those who have returned home after serving with the group have been prosecuted.
Most of the Canadian ISIS women who returned to Britain, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec were arrested on peace bonds that restrict their movement but do not constitute criminal charges.
Eldidi’s alleged crimes were filmed for four minutes video which was released in 2015 by the ISIS branch in northwestern Iraq. Titled “Deterring Spies,” it features a prisoner confessing before being led outside to an abandoned area.
The prisoner is then shown hanging on a cross as a man wearing an ISIS hat cuts away his growths with a sword. Prosecutors said the man brandishing the sword was Eldidi.
Despite his alleged past in Iraq, Eldidi was able to fly to Toronto’s Pearson Airport in 2018. The Immigration and Refugee Board accepted his refugee claim, and he became a citizen in May.
However, following a subsequent tip-off from French authorities, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the RCMP’s national security unit launched investigations.
Police arrested Eldidi and his son Mostafa (27) after they allegedly recorded a video in which they were holding an ax and a machete and pledging allegiance to the Islamic State terrorist group.
The case raised questions about gaps in Canada’s immigration security clearance system. The government defended its actions but said it was reviewing the matter.
“The investigation is ongoing and more information will be released when it becomes available,” Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said in a statement last month.
At the Standing Committee for Public and National Security hearing in August, Conservative MP Melissa Lantsman questioned how “someone like this, who is an alleged ISIS terrorist” could get citizenship.
“Do you really think that’s how the system should work? Do you really think this is not a colossal failure of your government?” she said.
The number of ISIS-related investigations has grew up across Canada, with 20 suspects arrested this year and last year, compared to just two in 2022.
According to police and experts, young people are driving a surge in ISIS activity as the terror group recovers from its 2019 defeat in Syria.
© 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
