Crime

Court convicts first pro-Assad war crimes defendant in Netherlands While the Dutch have brought several Syrians to trial for crimes committed during their country’s civil war, previous defendants were all members of opposition forces.

(Courthouse News) Dutch judges sentenced a former militia commander to 12 years in prison for complicity in torture and illegal detention on Monday, marking the first conviction of a pro-government Syrian defendant in the Netherlands. The 35-year-old, identified only as Mustafa A., […]

Government & Politics

Foreign fighter loses bid to prove he worked for Danish intelligence services Ahmed Samsam hoped to reopen his case after he was found guilty of joining the Islamic State group in Syria. He said he was working as an agent for Denmark's spy services, but today the Danish Eastern High Court declined to take up his case.

(Courthouse News) One of Denmark’s most spectacular spy court cases came to a preliminary end Wednesday, as the Eastern High Court declined to take up Ahmed Samsam’s lawsuit against the Danish domestic and foreign intelligence services. Samsam, convicted of being an Islamic […]

Children & Teens

France stabbing: Attacker denied Swedish citizenship over Syrian army service Court documents show that Abdelmasih Hanoun was 'on a mission' in Kiswa, where protesters were killed in the early stages of the uprising

(National-UAE) Swedish court documents show that a Syrian man who attacked toddlers with a knife in a park in south-east France last month served in the Syrian Armed Forces in the early years of the civil war, leading to his citizenship being […]

Moderation & Reform

‘A real force of nature’: Pakistani-Canadian journalist Tarek Fatah dead from cancer at 73 Tarek Fatah, a self-described secular Muslim, was known for criticizing religious extremists and Pakistan nationalists

(National Post) Tarek Fatah, the Toronto Sun columnist, has died at the age of 73, his family has said. In more than a decade writing columns for the Sun, Fatah, who identified as a secular Muslim, distinguished himself with his acidic opinions […]

Law Enforcement

North York man arrested on U.S. charges of using bitcoin, GoFundMe to raise money for ISIS Khalilullah Yousuf, 34, allegedly raised and transferred money to a 'facilitator' for the Islamic State and was arrested by Canadian police Wednesday.

(Toronto Star) Using aliases and social-media fronts, Khalilullah Yousuf was allegedly the driving force behind fundraising efforts to help the desperate and downtrodden Palestinians of the Gaza Strip. But FBI investigators allege the 34-year-old North York man, who was arrested Wednesday, used […]

News: North America

Is Khaled Barakat part of a terrorist group or a victim of Israeli intimidation? Israeli intelligence is not alone in situating Barakat, who resides in Vancouver, in the upper echelons of the PFLP’s chain of command

(National Post) He’s a high-ranking member of a Palestinian terrorist organization best known for dramatic airplane hijackings, suicide bombings and a 2014 massacre at a Jerusalem synagogue that left several worshippers severely injured and five dead, including Toronto-born rabbi Howie Rothman. That’s […]