Friday, April 01, 2011
Mohamed Hersi faces terror charges. FACEBOOK |
As far as some of his relatives knew, Mohamed Hersi was headed to Egypt on Tuesday to study Arabic for several months.
The 25-year-old who was born in Somalia but moved to Canada as a child, was trying to turn his life around. Despite having a science degree and a job as a security guard, Hersi had grown frustrated with life.
He was tired of living in a dilapidated public housing unit near Markham Rd. and Eglinton Ave. E. and of watching his mother, a widow who had raised four children alone, struggling to make ends meet.
And as he told a cousin, Hersi wanted to go to Egypt to “get the morals I’ve lost.”
But police arrested Hersi without incident Tuesday night at Pearson airport before boarding a plane for London, where he was to catch a connecting flight to the Cairo airport. He had a one-way ticket.
Yet his final destination would have been Somalia, say authorities who launched an investigation after a tip from the public. That’s where Hersi allegedly planned to join Al Shabaab, the Al Qaeda-inspired movement designated as a terrorist group in the U.S. and Canada.
Hersi’s arrest has sparked fears within the local Somali community that Al Shabaab, an Islamist youth militia, is still recruiting young men. In 2009, six Somali-Canadian men disappeared from the Toronto area and were believed to have joined the group. One died in battle about a year ago.
Two sources from the Somali community told the Star Hersi knew “some” of those young men. It’s unclear if he was a friend or just an acquaintance.
On Wednesday morning, Hersi made a brief court appearance in Brampton to hear the charges against him: attempting to participate in terrorist activity and providing counsel to a person to participate in a terrorist activity.
“They’ve got the wrong person,” Hersi’s brother, Yassin Mohamed, later told reporters outside the courtroom. He attended the five-minute proceeding with his mother and uncle.
Hersi was remanded until Friday, when a special bail hearing will be scheduled, likely for next week.
Few details have been released of the six-month investigation called Project Severe, although police did hold a news conference Wednesday and issued a media statement saying they had obtained “numerous critical pieces of evidence required to lay criminal charges.”
Hersi’s relatives, who expressed shock, are eager to learn the evidence.
“I don’t think he would want to go back (to Somalia),” his aunt, Hali Mohamed, said at her Scarborough home, where other relatives had gathered.
“He’s the most intelligent in the family. I can’t believe it. That’s crazy,” she said. “Some people have the courage to go and fight, but not him, he’s not violent.”
Hersi’s cousin, who asked not to be named, was also stunned to learn of the arrest in the media. Hersi, he said, had told him he planned to study Arabic in Egypt for four months, but never mentioned going to Somalia or ever spoke of Al Shabaab.
“He was frustrated with his life,” the cousin said. “He started saying, ‘I’m going to Egypt to get the morals I’ve lost.’ But he never mentioned any of this terrorist thing.”
Hersi, who graduated in 2009 from the University of Toronto with a bachelor of science degree, had been working as a security guard and saving up for his trip.
“He seemed like he was fed up with his lifestyle, living in these (public highrises), hearing his mom struggling and all that put him under pressure.”
The cousin said he had heard from other relatives that Hersi was becoming increasingly religious and frequented the Salaheddin Islamic Centre in Scarborough. But, he added, Hersi wasn’t radical.
He was a “regular kid” from the West, who loved movies and liked R&B and hip hop, said the cousin.
Hersi popped onto the radar of Toronto police in September, when they received a tip. By October, they were working with the RCMP’s national security enforcement team.
At the news conference, Toronto Police Supt. Tom Fitzgerald refused to disclose the source of that tip.
Police said their investigation did not indicate the suspect was a direct threat to this country or Canadians. Fitzgerald added: “You can rest assured that the laying of the charges is underpinned by a fair degree of confidence that the allegations are supported.”
RCMP Insp. Keith Finn explained that because Al Shabaab is a listed terrorist group within the authority of law in Canada, “any participation in that group would constitute an offence.”
Police also spoke of youth becoming radicalized and called on the public to be more vigilant.
Al Shabaab, which was added to the Canadian list of terrorist organizations last March, recruits young Somali men through the Internet.
Its propaganda is a mix of nationalist sentiment, religious ideology and tough talk aimed at youth seeking a purpose and willing to take up arms in their homeland, say community leaders in Canada and the U.S.
In the past four years, at least two dozen Somali-American men from Minneapolis have disappeared along with others from Australia, Sweden and Britain.
With files from Raveena Aulakh