A Pakistani citizen living in Toronto who risks being deported due to his alleged association with a Pakistani terrorist organisation by Canadian authorities has denied any links to such groups and denied police claims that he admitted living in Canada on a “military mission”, a report published on National Post said.
Mohammed Aqeeq Ansari was arrested in Toronto October of last year and responded to allegations against him in a hearing of Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) of Canada.
He is believed to have been recorded professing hatred against Canadians in a Toronto mosque and claiming he was sent to Canada on a special mission.
In his testimony, he refuted claims he preached hatred by saying: “I was talking about my aversion to Canadian or American exceptionalism.”
“I said I’m here for a reason” — to send money home to help Pakistani people, he told the board.
Ansari, 30, asserted that there is no way authorities could prove the allegations directed at him and if they were found to be true, he would voluntarily exile himself from Canada and never return.
“This is a severe false claim,” he declared. “I never said I was ever sent here on any military mission. This is a lie.”
Ansari was arrested five years after he immigrated to Canada following a Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) investigation called Project Seashell in which he was found to have purchased $20,000 worth of firearms as well as up to 2,000 rounds of ammunition while he was jobless and living in his brother’s basement.
The IRB will decide if he should be deported as being a threat to Canadian security.
Canadian authorities claim he was involved in attempted fundraising and websites linked to a terrorist group in Pakistan. He denied this claim but acknowledged helping a religious organization headed by cleric Ilyas Ghuman, whose resumé says he “participated in jihad in the battlefields” of Afghanistan and was imprisoned five times in Pakistan.
When asked if he believes insulting Islam is an offense punishable by death, he replied, “Of course, it’s part of Islam.” He later clarified that such killings could only be done by the state in an Islamic country. He also claimed that “people view every practising Muslim as a terrorist”.
