RCMP did not entrap Canadian imprisoned in U.S. for ISIS plot, review finds

The government’s national security review agency has dismissed a complaint alleging the RCMP entrapped a Canadian imprisoned in the United States for plotting ISIS attacks.

The National Security and Intelligence Review Agency found the RCMP had conducted a “good faith investigation” into Abdulrahman El Bahnasawy, a Toronto-area resident.

The RCMP probe was based on “credible evidence of an existing willingness by Mr. El Bahnasawy to commit acts of violence,” the agency wrote in its report, obtained by Global News.

“I have found no evidence on the record before me of entrapment.”

But the agency said its review of the matter remained incomplete because the RCMP had refused to disclose legal advice it received during its investigation.

El Bahnasawy’s parents believe the unreleased records could shed light on the RCMP’s involvement, said John‑Otto Phillips, a lawyer representing the family.

“The situation suggests that the RCMP has information it does not want the NSIRA to see,” he said.

“And we believe that this information is directly relevant to what happened to Abdulrahman.”

Both the RCMP and NSIRA declined to comment.

A Kuwait-born Canadian citizen with a history of substance abuse and mental illness, El Bahnasawy was arrested in a New Jersey hotel parking lot in 2016.

His case has become a matter of controversy due to allegations the RCMP helped U.S. authorities investigate a mentally ill Canadian teenager.

The website of a campaign that aims to bring El Bahnasawy back to Canada claims he was “entrapped by the FBI with help from the RCMP knowing he was a minor with bipolar disorder.”

The review agency’s report provides the first detailed examination of the RCMP’s role in the case.

The Oct. 12, 2023 report has not been publicly released by the review body or the government, but Global News obtained a copy from the Federal Court, where it is at the centre of a legal dispute.

The report said the FBI identified El Bahnasawy in February 2016, during an investigation into a group of co-conspirators in Syria and elsewhere who were planning bombing and shooting attacks in New York City.

The RCMP launched its own investigation, Project Symbolic, in March 2016, but it took six to seven weeks to approve an operational plan, and neither surveillance nor an undercover operation produced results, NSIRA said.

An additional challenge was that information the FBI shared with the RCMP was subject to caveats that meant it could not be used as evidence in Canadian courts, the review found.

Unable to gather sufficient evidence to charge El Bahnasawy with terrorism, the RCMP looked into whether to seek a peace bond against him, but feared that would expose other ongoing investigations.

Ultimately, no court proceedings were initiated in Canada, and in May 2016, El Bahnasawy accompanied his family to the U.S. by car and was taken into custody.

He pleaded guilty to terrorism in a U.S. court and was sentenced to 40 years.

Now 26, he is being held in solitary confinement at a Colorado maximum security prison, and is also on trial for allegedly stabbing a Pennsylvania prison guard in the eye.

Following his sentencing, his parents filed a complaint alleging the RCMP had teamed up with the FBI to entrap their son although he was a minor facing mental health and substance abuse problems.

The couple said that instead of helping their son, the RCMP allowed him to enter the U.S., where he would face “severe treatment” in the American justice system.

But in his report on the case, NSIRA vice-chair Craig Forcese said he had found no evidence to support the allegations.

The RCMP investigation did not begin until El Bahnasawy was an adult, and the RCMP was not aware of his mental health issues until his arrest, according to the report.

While investigators learned he had undergone rehabilitation at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto, they did not have his medical records, the agency wrote.

The review found the RCMP treated the case as a high-priority national security investigation. Bahnasawy had purchased materials for explosives and shipped them to the U.S., along with maps of targets.

He had sought financing from an overseas contact and made plans to travel to New York under the guise of a family vacation.

It was reasonable to believe El Bahnasawy was “determined to move his plot from online into the real world,” according to the report.

“I have no factual basis before me to support a notion that, in setting upon this trajectory, Mr. El Bahnasawy was entrapped,” it said.

The review rejected the theory the RCMP had “engineered an investigation to secure an arrest in the United States, with an eye to enabling a harsh incarceration.”

“I find that that the RCMP concluded that it did not have the evidence for a criminal arrest, and that overt steps taken against Mr. El Bahnasawy might prejudice on-going investigations.”

“I have found no basis to conclude that the RCMP was motivated in the conduct of its investigation by a desire to see Mr. El Bahnasawy arrested in the United States, was aware of the scope of Mr. El Bahnasawy’s mental health condition prior to his arrest, or contemplated the relative severity of sentencing in making its decisions,” Forcese wrote.

“On the contrary, the record suggests that the RCMP’s first choice in this matter was criminal proceedings in Canada.”

The parents had “not been privy to investigative material related to this case, and therefore … have been left to speculate and draw inferences about the series of events culminating in their son’s arrest,” the report added.

But the review did find that the RCMP had improperly shared financial information about the family with U.S. authorities.

And NSIRA said it was not able to assess whether the RCMP’s conduct “was supported by, or consistent with, legal advice” because the police force would not disclose records on that.

Although NSIRA has issued its report, in February it asked the RCMP to hand over documents on the legal advice it received during the investigation.

The government responded by bringing a case before the Federal Court arguing the materials are protected by solicitor-client privilege.

The El Bahnasawy family has also filed a case against the RCMP seeking disclosure of the files.

The missing documents could support the family’s suspicion the RCMP did not want to arrest El Bahnasawy because “he would face far more draconian conditions of imprisonment in the United States,” their lawyer said.

“Obviously, this does not give the El Bahnasawy family, and the Canadian public, confidence that the RCMP is being open and transparent with a critical national security regulator that exists to ‘watch the watchers,'” he said.

Stewart.Bell@globalnews.ca