Mark Kersten is an assistant professor at the University of the Fraser Valley and a senior consultant at the Wayamo Foundation.
Immigration Minister Marc Miller said he is as “disgusted as any Canadian” that Ahmed Fouad Mostafa Eldidi found his way into Canada. A House of Commons committee will now study how an alleged former Islamic State fighter became a citizen only to be caught planning a terrorist attack with his son Mostafa Eldidi on July 31.
While Ahmed Eldidi faces charges of aggravated assault in a foreign country, the allegations have the hallmarks of a war crime. Canada should prosecute them – and it has the laws and the obligation to do so.
The evidence that Ahmed Eldidi may have committed atrocities is gruesome. A person matching his description was captured on a video produced by the Islamic State using a sword to cut off a prisoner’s hands as he is strapped into a wooden contraption.
It remains unclear who the victim in the video was. But the Islamic State is notorious for summarily executing prisoners en masse. What the video does suggest is that the prisoner was subjected to torture. If he died as a result of his injuries, then the perpetrator would also have committed an extrajudicial killing. These are war crimes.
That this attack was caught on video matters too. Open-source, digital evidence is increasingly being used by justice systems around the world to address international crimes. In European courts, Islamic State perpetrators have been found guilty of war crimes based on videos they themselves shared online as recruitment material. What they did not bank on was that those materials would be used to prosecute their fighters.
Is one act of mutilation or killing enough for a war-crimes charge? Yes. There have been numerous trials in European courts where Islamic State figures have been prosecuted for a single war crime, such as posing with the heads of decapitated victims or the shooting of a single prisoner.
And even though the alleged crimes happened in the Middle East, Canada can prosecute Mr. Eldidi for war crimes in Canadian courts. In 2000, Canada passed the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act, which allows Canadian authorities to prosecute perpetrators of international crimes, even when neither the offender nor the victim is Canadian and the offence happened abroad. A precondition to exercising this power of universal jurisdiction is that the alleged perpetrator be present in Canada. Ahmed Eldidi is here.
If he is Syrian, Mr. Eldidi cannot be deported, as he would likely be tortured and perhaps killed. That he cannot be sent back thwarts Canada’s preferred method of dealing with war criminals residing in Canada: deporting them to their country of origin and wiping its hands clean of any obligation to hold them to account.
But even beyond the moral and legal obligations to investigating and prosecuting Mr. Eldidi for war crimes, as spelled out in the Geneva Conventions, Canada would actually stand to gain from pursuing such a prosecution. It would flex Canada’s ability to address international crimes, indicate its commitment to an international rules-based order, and capture the full criminality of Mr. Eldidi’s alleged atrocities. It could also lead to a harsher sentence if he is ultimately convicted.
If Canada needs inspiration on linking terrorist offences and international crimes, it need look no further than its allies. A court in the Netherlands, for example, convicted a fighter from Syria for both terrorism offences and war crimes in 2021. In that case, too, the offender was prosecuted for a single extrajudicial killing of a prisoner captured on video.
Mr. Eldidi is far from the only perpetrator accused of atrocities living in Canada, and they have been let in under both Conservative and Liberal governments. While Ottawa no longer publishes numbers, there are likely hundreds of them in the country, many of them living openly. Earlier this year, the House of Commons acknowledged that 700 individuals linked to the Iranian regime are present in Canada. Many won’t be direct perpetrators of human rights violations, but they are all part of a system that regularly tortures and terrorizes its citizens. Like Mr. Eldidi, they should be investigated with an eye to prosecuting any alleged atrocities.
Canada has a woeful record in prosecuting such perpetrators. Indeed, Canada seems more likely to host a Nazi in Parliament than to prosecute someone for war crimes in its own courts.
The presence of perpetrators of international crimes in Canada is an insult to victims and survivors everywhere, including those who found refuge here. Canadians are right to be troubled that Mr. Eldidi came to this country. But his presence is also an opportunity for Canada to contribute to justice for the victims of the Islamic State.