A New York Times podcast featuring an interview with a returned ISIS fighter now living in Canada prompted a fiery debate on Friday at the federal Parliament about his whereabouts, and what the country is doing to reintegrate members of the terror group after they return home.
The podcast, Caliphate, hosted by reporter Rukmini Callimachi, traces the rise of ISIS and what drew people from around the world to its ranks. The first few episodes focus on a young Canadian-Pakistani man referred to only by his nom de guerre Abu Huzaifa, whose whereabouts are not revealed. He claims to have served in ISIS’ morality police unit in Syria for six months and carried lashings against people who violated their interpretation of sharia law.
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On Friday, the day after the podcast’s fourth episode was released, Conservative house leader Candice Bergen slammed the Liberals during Question Period for not ordering law enforcement to arrest the man. She also demanded that Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale reveal whether or not the government knows where he is.
“This individual is speaking freely in the media. The government has got to know where he is,” Bergen decried. “In fact, last night in the podcast, this individual described how he executed individuals by shooting them in the back of the head.”
She continued: “He said that the people he was shooting deserved it, and he said ‘I know I won’t be held accountable.’ He said that at least twice. He said it was all part of the goal of being a front-line fighter.”
Goodale pushed back, claiming that discussing operational matters on the floor of the House of Commons was “the opposite of keeping Canadians safe.” He went on to say that every security agency in the country was “doing their job and taking all of the steps necessary to ensure justice is in force.”
In the fourth episode of the podcast, Abu Huzaifa describes his participation in a group execution. He and other fighters were taken to a public place, and prisoners were brought out and made to kneel in front of each of them.
“No emotions on them, they looked like animals to me at that point,” he says. He describes having to talk himself into carrying out the execution, and says at the time, he had goals of becoming a front-line fighter. He thought of the execution as a “stepping stone” to that goal.
“You start slow, you’re like, ‘Slowly, you can do this,” he recalls telling himself at the time. “‘You’re killing him for a reason, this is justified, you can do this, you’re not going to be held accountable.’”
He momentarily hesitates after looking down and realizing the people they’re about to kill look like “regular, good Muslims.”
Ultimately, he builds himself up, closes his eyes and pulls the trigger.
In the House of Commons, Bergen mocked Goodale and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, reducing their approach to re-integrating foreign fighters to merely giving them “poetry lessons.”
“This guy is apparently in Toronto,” Bergen continued. “Canadians deserve more from this government. Why aren’t they doing anything about this despicable animal?”
Last year, Global News reported on an anonymous young man who appears to be the same person in the Caliphate podcast. Since returning home from fighting in Syria, the returnee is described as living in a “spacious house with a satellite dish and two-car garage and attends a university in the Toronto region.
It’s rare that police in Canada lay charges against people who have returned home, and they often fall through the cracks. Public Safety estimates where are around 60 such returnees, and the department claims that every effort is made to help integrate them back into society.
