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A Toronto delivery driver accused of dismembering a prisoner in Iraq nearly a decade ago has become the first alleged ISIS member to face war crimes charges in Canada, experts said.
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 an asylum application that was accepted. He is now a Canadian citizen.
Global News revealed last summer that Eldidi, a former Amazon driver originally from Egypt, was allegedly seen in a 2015 ISIS video using a sword to cut off a prisoner’s hands and feet.
“I can confirm that Ahmed Eldidi is charged with offenses under the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act,” Nathalie Houle, a spokeswoman for Canada’s Public Prosecution Service, said Monday.
The charges are a first in 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 very important thing,” he said.
To his knowledge, Canada’s prosecutors had never before used the war crimes law against a suspect in alleged crimes committed on Islamic State territory, he said.
Rather, Canada has primarily used war crimes laws for deportations and citizenship revocations. In 2021, a resident of B.C. pleaded guilty to war crimes for promoting hatred against residents of the Katanga region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Eldidi has already been charged with aggravated assault for the alleged incident in Iraq, as well as terrorism charges for what the RCMP said was a foiled ISIS attack plot in Toronto.
But six months later, the Crown brought more substantial war crimes charges, alleging the 62-year-old committed mutilations and “outrages on 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 charges were approved on December 11 by George Dolhai, Canada’s deputy attorney general.
ISIS committed untold atrocities in Syria and Iraq, including the genocide of the Yazidis, but in 2019 it lost the last of its territory to Kurdish fighters and an international military coalition.
Since then, there has been little justice for ISIS members, even in Canada, where only a handful of those who have returned home after serving with the group have been prosecuted.
Most Canadian ISIS women who have returned to British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec have been arrested with peace bonds that restrict their movements but do not constitute criminal charges.
Eldidi’s alleged crimes were captured in a four-minute video released in 2015 by ISIS’s northwest Iraq branch. Titled “Deterring Spies,” it shows a prisoner confessing before being led to a deserted area.
The prisoner is then shown suspended from a crucifix while a man wearing an ISIS hat cuts off his limbs with a sword. Prosecutors have alleged that the man wielding the sword is Eldidi.
Despite his alleged past in Iraq, Eldidi was able to fly into Toronto’s Pearson Airport in 2018. His asylum application was accepted by the Immigration and Refugee Board and he became a citizen in May.
However, following a subsequent tip from French authorities, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the RCMP’s Integrated National Security Enforcement Team launched investigations.
Police arrested Eldidi and his son Mostafa, 27, after they allegedly recorded a video in which they held an ax and a machete and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State terrorist group.
The case has raised questions about loopholes 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 once it is available,” Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said in a statement last month.
At a Standing Committee on Public Safety and Homeland Security hearing in August, Conservative MP Melissa Lantsman questioned how “someone like this, a suspected ISIS terrorist” was able to obtain citizenship.
“Do you really think this is how the system should work? Do you really think this isn’t a colossal failure of your government? she said.
The number of ISIS-related investigations has increased across Canada, with 20 suspects arrested this year and last, compared to just two in 2022.
Young people are driving the rise in ISIS activity as the terrorist group recovers from its defeat in Syria in 2019, according to police and experts.
Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca
© 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
