Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Third Ottawa man arrested, charged with terror offences

Third Ottawa man arrested, charged with terror offences

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/third-ottawa-man-arrested-in-rcmp-anti-terror-probe-accused-of-conspiring-with-twins

Suliman Mohamed steps out of his grandmother's house in Vanier on Saturday, days before his Monday arrest on terror-related charges.
Cole Burston / Ottawa Citizen
Share Adjust Comment Print
An RCMP terrorism probe in the nation’s capital has grown to include a third accused with the arrest Monday of a 21-year-old man who police allege conspired with a pair of identical twins arrested days earlier.

Suliman Mohamed, 21, was arrested Monday and charged with participating in the activity of a terrorist group and conspiring to participate in a terrorist activity.

Police confirmed that Mohamed’s arrest is connected to the arrests of 24-year-old twins Ashton and Carlos Larmond, who were swept up by RCMP on Friday.

Ottawa police were on scene at Mohamed’s grandmother’s house on Ste-Cecile Street in Vanier Friday night as part of an RCMP national security investigation.

On Saturday, two days prior to his own arrest, Mohamed answered the door at that address, where he also lives. He would not say if he knew the Larmond brothers.

“I’m not going to disclose any information that’s not obligatory,” Mohamed said.
He said it was a “general rule” he lives by.

When asked if the Larmond twins lived at the home, Mohamed said he didn’t have the right to speak about it, without the person’s consent to divulge information about him or her.

“It’s a moral thing,” he said. “It’s a moral thing, that’s all it is.”

Mohamed’s mother Iwona Buziak-Mohamed told the Citizen Monday, prior to her son’s arrest, that even if either of her two children — son Suliman and a 19-year-old daughter — had any prior relationship with the Larmond brothers, that the matter was for police to investigate, not reporters.
Buziak-Mohamed also insisted that her children are not responsible for the actions of any of the friends they keep.

She said she had “no idea” why the police were at her mother’s home on Friday.

RCMP announced Mohamed’s arrest just hours later.

Police arrested Carlos Larmond Friday at Montreal’s Trudeau Airport before he could get on a plane to travel abroad for what police allege was a plan to participate in terrorist activity.

Carlos was ticketed to New Delhi, India, transiting through Frankfurt, Germany — a popular travel hub for Western extremists on their way to Syria and Iraq via Turkey. Police have charged him with attempting to leave the country to participate in a crime, and with participating in the activity of a terrorist group.

Ashton was arrested in Ottawa, also on Friday, and subsequently charged with facilitating a terrorist activity, participating in the activity of a terrorist group, and instructing another to carry out an activity for a terrorist group. It’s alleged that the two conspired between last August and the day they were arrested.

The investigation zeroed in on Ashton an entire year before police believe the two began to conspire. It was as early as Aug. 31, 2013 when, police allege, Ashton began participating in a terrorist group’s activity.

Ashton publicly told at least one person he believed he was under RCMP watch as recently as December 2013, when he told a former hockey teammate that he was newly converted to Islam.

The twins, who were raised by their grandmother on King George Street in Overbrook, have criminal records. 

They were arrested together and convicted of drug possession in Ottawa in 2010, for which they were ordered to pay a fine. Ashton was charged with breaching an undertaking in 2011. In January of 2014, Carlos was arrested in Gatineau and later charged with possessing marijuana and cocaine. He’s next scheduled to appear in Gatineau court on Feb. 9, three days before he and his brother are scheduled to make separate court appearances on their terror charges.

Mohamed does not have a previous criminal record in either Ontario or Quebec.

His mother, Buziak-Mohamed, is a Polish-Canadian artist and his father, identified online as Idris Altaher, is originally from Sudan.

He and his younger sister, now 19, both studied flamenco guitar and participated in Polish community events in the Ottawa area when they were younger.

About 10 years ago, they both won medals from a Polish organization for their language skills. They were also studying at a Sudanese Arabic language school, according to a report on a Sudanese-Canadian website, where they were known as top students.

Mohamed and his sister attended D’Arcy McGee High School in Gatineau.

“He was really sweet,” one former classmate said.

A second former classmate, who asked not to be identified, said Mohamed was a smart guy who helped him in math class, but that the teen seemed easily influenced at the time. The classmate said Mohamed appeared to be migrating towards a rougher crowd but that the two hadn’t spoken since the older classmate graduated from high school in 2009.

“In high school, he wasn’t a practising or orthodox Muslim by any means,” he said.

Later, both children, though having grown up in Aylmer, Que., moved in with their grandmother at the Vanier home where police stood Friday night.

Mohamed’s father had “distinctly Islamic view,” said someone who knew the children when they were in their early teens.

“The father was more interested in making sure they understood Shariah,” said the acquaintance, who didn’t want to be identified.

As a teenager, Mohamed didn’t show much interest in religion but underwent a transformation in recent years — “a profound and almost urgent calling,” the acquaintance said.

The person was shocked to see him a few years ago on the street, with a beard and wearing the traditional dress of an observant Muslim.

During the chance meeting, Mohamed spoke only about his faith.

“He was expressing a great deal of passion and enthusiasm for his religion,” the person said.
“He was describing an epiphany.”

Chief Supt. Jennifer Strachan, criminal operations officer for the RCMP in Ontario, said that these recent arrests “underscore the reality that there are individuals in Ontario and in Canada who have become radicalized to a violent ideology, and who are willing to act upon it.”

Mohamed is expected to appear in court Tuesday.

With files from Matthew Pearson, Meghan Hurley and The National Post

No comments:

Post a Comment