Not Criminally Responsible?

"While it is common ground that the defendant had become radicalized, there is no evidence of any connection between him and any other person or group in relation to the attack."
"The intention of Parliament in enacting [the relevant terror legislation] was ... not to capture the kind of lone-wolf criminal behaviour engaged in by the defendant."
Judge Ian MacDonnell, Ontario Superior Court, Toronto 

"I have a licence to kill, I have a green light to kill."
"One soldier is all it takes, just one. I can’t let those fools play games with me. I’ve been ready and willing for a while now."
Diary, Ayanle Hassan Ali

"This was a case where the Crown overreached. They had someone who they thought looked the part of the terrorist when, in reality, they had someone who committed a terrible, terrible act who is mentally ill and they should have proceeded in that fashion rather than overreaching for terrorism."
"The definition of terrorism and terrorist activity in ... Canadian law is extremely broad and when laws are extremely broad the result is that it's left almost entirely up to the Crown to decide when they get used."
"The history of these terrorist provisions being used in Canada have been one where they happen to be used far more frequently when the individual accused is of Arab or African or Muslim descent [like Ali]."
Defence attorney Nader Hasan

Ayanle Hassan Ali, who attacked soldiers at a military recruitment centre in Toronto in March 2016, has been acquitted of terror-related charges and found not criminally responsible for lesser offences due to mental illness. (Toronto Police Service)

Perhaps it owes more to the Western mind attempting to come to grips with the fact that among us live people, devoted to Islam, who cling to the virtues of martyrdom, aspire to become a martyr, believe it is, as Islam's sacred writings urge, their faithful duty to pursue martyrdom. A martyrdom achieved while attacking and killing non-believers as instructed by the Koran in various passages. A ritual newly given impetus by the emergence in the Middle East of dedicated Islamists fashioning themselves as devotees of the Prophet Mohammad's own military conquests for Islam.

The fervent desire to court death is what distinguishes the ideological culture of Islam from the social culture of most societies not practising Islam. Murder and mayhem through jihad represents the culture of Islam reaching toward its goal of preeminence in religious devotion as its emissaries knowingly and others unknowingly and without intent infiltrate non-Muslim societies and gradually influence their heritage values, social cultures and laws.

So someone like Ayanle Hassan Ali, who planned and executed an ultimately failed terrorist act in entering a north Toronto military recruitment centre and attacking three military personnel with a knife, slashing at them while declaring "Allahu Akbar!", represents a mindset completely alien to the West. He must perforce be mentally ill.

He has pleaded not guilty to three counts of attempted murder, three counts of assault with a weapon, two counts of assault causing bodily harm and one count of carrying a weapon for the purpose of committing an offence -- purportedly in association with, for the benefit, or at the direction of a terror organization (in the phraseology of the law in question).

The problem lies in the fact that a court of justice thinks of a terror organization represented by groups such as al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, Al Shabab or Islamic State, among others. When the real terror organization is the religion itself, Islam, whose major precept of faithfulness is that of jihad, incumbent upon all who believe to immerse themselves within. As a university student, now-30-year-old Ali never demonstrated any symptoms of mentally-disturbed health.

As a person charged with attempted murder he is assumed to be plagued with mental illness.Two psychiatrists have diagnosed him with schizophrenia, and that he had been in a psychotic state when he had attacked those military personnel in March of 2016 for which he is now standing trial.

His defence lawyers are only too happy to present their client as a man not in possession or control of all his mental faculties, throwing in for good measure that he has been victimized, like all Muslims, Arabs or Africans charged with terrorism offences through 'profiling'. Since virtually all terrorists currently and for decades have been Arabs, Africans, East Asians and definitely Muslim it is no stretch to link them.

Forensic psychologist Dr. Phillip Klassen points out that mentally ill Ayanle Hassan Ali remains devoted to his determination to achieve martyrdom. To kill non-Muslims is the way to achieve that status, and since it is a legitimate Islamic goal, he couldn't possibly plead guilty to the charges brought against him. "He still seemed to express a wish that he’d achieve martyrdom", Dr. Klassen advised the court. "He believes he was morally justified in attacking soldiers."

What is being claimed as mental illness is in fact Western minds incapable of viewing a normal response by a Muslim to demands made upon his conscience by his faith resulting in a perception totally foreign and bewildering; best to call it mental illness. But his clever defence lawyers point out in an exercise of splitting hairs that Canadian legislation recognizes and links such acts of terrorism with a terror organization.

Together with the plea of mental illness and an ill fit for a terrorist designation in an instance of a supposed "lone wolf" attack, it seems the defence has tied the court to a seemingly rational conclusion, in effect exonerating someone convinced he has a moral obligation to kill on behalf of Islam and is guilty of nothing but a failure to fulfill his mission leading him to profoundly regret his lack of success.