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Canadian Cops Preached Screwed-Up Islamic Doctrine to Bomb Plotters, Court Hears

Undercover agents should have helped de-radicalize two would-be terrorists, says one expert. Instead, they may have made things worse.
Photo via the RCMP

Undercover Canadian police officers presented a warped interpretation of Islam to a radicalized couple from British Columbia, possibly discouraging them from seeking out moderate Islamic views, a Vancouver courtroom heard this week.

John Nuttall and his girlfriend Amanda Korody, recent converts to Islam, were found guilty of conspiring to commit murder and possessing bombs for a terrorist group last June. They were approached in 2013 by undercover officers from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), posing as businessmen with Islamist extremist sympathies.

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A months-long sting operation ensued, yielding more than 70 hours of video footage.

"Those are all things that, to a scholar of Islam, certainly seem to be eyebrow raising."

But the couple insists they're innocent and have launched new proceedings, arguing they were entrapped by the RCMP and intelligence officers. And until that matter is decided, their convictions have been paused. If the judge rules they were entrapped, their convictions could be overturned.

On Thursday, Omid Safi, head of Islamic studies at Duke University, testified that the officers offered "highly dubious" interpretations to the couple, who have been depicted by their defence attorney as poor drug addicts who spent their days holed up in their basement playing video games.

Related: Canadian Couple Found Guilty of Plotting to Blow Up Legislature Allege Entrapment

"I have questions about particular aspects of the ways in which the police seem to have presented themselves as a model of spiritual guides…putting themselves in a position of authority," Safi said, according to the Canadian Press. "Those are all things that, to a scholar of Islam, certainly seem to be eyebrow raising."

Safi added that the couple's understanding of Islam was superficial and that law enforcement should have helped them overcome their extreme ideologies, instead of fostering them.

"I think that deradicalization — religious guidance from an authentic, certifiable imam with command over issues of Islamic law — would be the proper course of actions," he said.

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"If there [redacted] was a human source then that raises serious issues about the potential role of CSIS in inciting the applicants to commit terrorist acts."

During cross-examination, the prosecutor told Safi that Nuttall had repeatedly criticized the views of mainstream Muslim leaders.

"I wish I could tell you that's a sign of a jihadist. It's not," Safi replied. "It's a sign of hotheadedness."

According to heavily redacted court documents released last month, someone from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) might have had a strong role in radicalizing Nuttall.

"If there [redacted] was a human source then that raises serious issues about the potential role of CSIS in inciting the applicants to commit terrorist acts," Nuttall's lawyer said in a court transcript.

Related: Man Convicted of Bomb Plot in Canada May Have Been Radicalized By Spy Agency

CSIS and the RCMP have lobbied the federal government to give them more power to "disrupt" terror threats in recent years, arguing that the law currently doesn't allow them to infiltrate and stop terror plots — an argument seemingly belied by the case unfolding in Vancouver. Those pleas eventually resulted in the creation of the controversial anti-terror legislation, known as Bill C-51.

"For those people where we assess that they are good candidates for intervention, we will bring together a host of resources that already exist within many communities to try to intervene, to try to engage with family members, and to bring in counsellors, religious authorities, and others who can intervene to try to dissuade the individual from pursuing this path of radicalization," RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson said in March 2015.

Final arguments in the entrapment proceedings are slated for May.

Follow Rachel Browne on Twitter: @rp_browne