An Edmonton gas station employee convicted in the U.K. of a terrorism offence came to the attention of the RCMP after returning to Canada from Lebanon in 2017, records obtained by Global News reveal.
The unsealed court documents show that Khaled Hussein, sentenced to five years last week for joining extremist group Al-Muhajiroun in 2020, was born in Alberta but spent much of his life in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.
At age seven, he moved with his family to Lebanon to learn Arabic and because “things were difficult for Muslims in Edmonton” following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, his mother wrote in a witness statement.
Sherri Hanson said her son attended schools in Lebanon and moved back to Edmonton seven years ago when he was 22. According to the British court, he joined Al-Muhajiroun three years later.
“Prior to going to London, Khaled was his normal self and there was no change in him,” she wrote.
The mother’s statement was among documents released to Global News by a British judge after Hussein was convicted of belonging to Al-Muhajiroun, which is headed by pro-ISIS preacher Anjem Choudary.
Supporters of Al-Muhajiroun carried out the 2017 London Bridge killings and the murder of Lee Rigby, among other terrorist attacks, while others have joined the so-called Islamic State.
Al-Muhajiroun is “a radical organization intent on spreading Sharia law to as much of the world as possible using violent means where necessary,” the judge wrote in the sentencing decision.
Emergency responders at the scene of a March 22, 2017, terrorist attack in London by an Al-Muhajiroun supporter. (AP Photo/Matt Dunham).
The unsealed court documents contain previously unpublicized details about the life of Hussein, 29, a Canadian who arrived in the U.K. on July 17, 2023 and was immediately arrested by the London police Counter Terrorism Command.
The arrest was the result of an RCMP investigation launched in October 2019 that “focused on individuals within Alberta who recruit, radicalize, and facilitate entry into violent extremism.”
Hussein’s sentencing in the U.K.’s Woolwich Crown Court came two days after the RCMP arrested a father and son, Ahmed and Mostafa Eldidi, for allegedly planning a terrorist attack in Toronto for ISIS.
The cases have refocused attention on what the Canadian Security Intelligence Service calls “religiously motivated violent extremism,” a brand of terrorism it says “will continue to pose a domestic threat to Canada in 2024.”
Parents took Edmonton-born son to Lebanon at age 7
According to the mother’s witness statement, Hussein is the eldest of nine children. She met their Lebanese father, Walid Hussein, in Red Deer, Alta., in 1993, when she was an 18-year-old Christian.
The Husseins lived in Edmonton until April 2002, when they decided to move to Saadnayel, a town 50 kilometres east of Beirut in the Bekaa Valley, known as a haven for smuggling and militancy.
A stronghold of Hezbollah, Bekaa Valley is where Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have operated terror training camps. ISIS has also had a presence there. Canada has warned about travel to parts of the area.
The Bekaa Valley town of Zahle, Lebanon, on Dec. 31, 2018. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar).
By the time the family returned to Edmonton in 2007, Hussein could read and write in Arabic, Hanson wrote in her statement. However, they did not stay long in Alberta, returning to Lebanon in 2008.
In 2017, the family came home to Edmonton, but Hanson’s husband was living in Jordan then and stopped communicating with her. “Walid has not spoken to the kids since 2018,” she wrote.
“Khaled became the man of the house in the absence of Walid,” Hanson wrote in her signed statement, dated Sept. 27, 2023. She said he took care of his siblings and spent his spare time with them.
In a statement signed by “Khaled’s siblings,” his brothers and sisters said Hussein would bring them takeout every Friday and they would watch movies. On Saturdays, he would take the youngest three on outings.
“He was always concerned about them feeling bad because their dad wasn’t around and wanted to fill that void the best he could,” according to their statement to the court.
Hussein started working at a Co-op gas station in Edmonton in September 2018. A co-worker, Mary Palencia, wrote in a witness statement that she had suggested he get tested for attention deficit disorder.
“Khaled was very religious,” she said. He would ask for time off to pray, she added. “I did not ask too much about his religion but he did not give me any reason to be concerned.”
Online posts attract attention
But his online activities were soon attracting international attention. A Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) report released on Aug. 12, 2021, alleged he was posting content by “jihadi preachers.”
“Canadian Man Promotes Content From Anjem Choudary, Abu Baraa, Younus Kathrada, Ali Al-Tamimi, Omar Bakri Mohammed, Calls For Establishment Of Caliphate,” the report headline read.
Online post about British extremist Anjem Choudary from MEMRI report.
MEMRI
Hussein’s social media posts, some using the handle Abu Aisha Al Kanadi, expressed “support of jihad, mainly against Israel,” wrote MEMRI, which called him a “staunch supporter and member of the Islamic Thinkers Society.”
Islamic Thinkers Society, or ITS, is another name for Al-Muhajiroun.
After singling out Hussein as a person of interest, the RCMP confirmed he was sharing ITS/Al-Muhajiroun content “on a global scale” for British extremist leader Choudary, the RCMP said in a statement.
Hussein was effectively acting as a Choudary’s personal assistant, helping him host online lectures with other extremists and editing online blogs and publications for him, police said.
His actions were concerning because of the links between Al-Muhajiroun, also known as ALM, and terrorism, the RCMP said.
“A number of former ALM followers have been linked to terror plots, including the murder of five people on Westminster Bridge on March 22, 2017, and an attack that killed eight on London Bridge on June 3, 2017.”
Hussein’s mother said she had never heard her son talk about ITS or Choudary, and as far as she knew, Hussein worshipped at two Edmonton mosques and was studying English literature at Athabasca University, an online institution.
She wrote that her son had met a Russian woman on an Islamic dating app and they were to marry. According to his mother, he was planning a trip to London and, from there, to Turkey to see her and her family.
Charles Dickens’ home, Charles Dickens Museum, Dec. 5, 2012. Edmonton resident Khaled Hussein planned to visit the site during a weeklong stay in London, according to his mother. (AP Photo/Sang Tan, File).
During a weeklong stay in England, he intended to visit the Dickens Museum in London and the Cadbury World chocolate theme park in Birmingham, before flying to Turkey, she said.
“Khaled was very happy and excited to go to London because he was going on to Turkey from there to meet his fiancé and her family,” she wrote.
Mother ‘shocked and angry’ over son’s arrest
When RCMP investigators learned Hussein was travelling to London, they alerted British police, who arrested him on July 17 and charged him with membership in Al-Muhajiroun.
Court records show he was also charged with refusing to give police the password to an electronic device. Choudary, whom the British tabloids have branded a hate preacher, was arrested at the same time.
“Khaled is against violence and he likes doing research on things that interest him.”
Hussein and Choudary were convicted on July 23, 2024, following a six-week trial. The court said Choudary became leader of Al-Muhajiroun after its founder Omar Bakri Mohammed was jailed in 2014.
A Syrian refugee in Al-Marj, Bekaa valley, Lebanon, on April 8, 2017. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar).
The group operated under pseudonyms, including Islamic Thinkers Society, which originated as a New York-based organization that Choudary used to spread his message in the U.S., the judge wrote.
In 30 lectures, Choudary encouraged his followers to conduct acts of violence, wrote the judge, who said he had “thinly disguised these exhortations to violence as lessons in Islamic theology”
In sentencing Choudary to life, the judge said groups like Al-Muhajiroun gave “individuals the courage to commit acts which otherwise they might not do. They drive wedges between people who otherwise could and would live together in peaceful co-existence.”
Hussein was sentenced to five years in custody.
The judge said he was “actively providing support to Anjem Choudary and disseminating information to others such as the undercover police officers. You were involved for over two years.”
The head of the British Crown Prosecution Service’s Counter Terrorism Division said Choudary was “responsible for directing an international terrorist organization and Hussein provided him support.”
“It is clear that both men were members of Al-Muhajiroun and both men had a radical mindset,” Bethan David said. “Such extremist views are a threat to our society, and I am pleased the jury found him guilty of his crimes.”
Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca