A woman who was expected to be a key witness for the prosecution in the trial of Sabrine Djermane and El Mahdi Jamali last year on terrorism-related charges saw an allegation that she obstructed justice withdrawn at the Montreal courthouse on Monday.
Rania Djermane, the younger sister of Sabrine Djermane, was charged last year with having obstructed justice while the case against her sibling and Jamali was at the preliminary inquiry stage in 2016. What was made clear in affidavits prepared before the couple were charged, in 2015, was that Rania desperately wanted to prevent her sister from travelling to Syria to join the terrorist group ISIL. However, despite having provided key evidence in the investigation, Rania was never called as a witness during the trial.
The preliminary inquiry in Rania’s case was set to begin on Monday. Instead, prosecutor François Allard announced to a judge that the Crown would withdraw the charge alleging that, on May 14, 2016, she voluntarily attempted to obstruct justice by declaring she had lied in previous statements given to the police. Allard, who was not the actual prosecutor in the case, offered no explanation for the decision but referred to protocol used by the Directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales.
While another of Sabrine’s sisters was key to setting off the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET) investigation, it was Rania who supplied investigators with key evidence of things Sabrine had confided to her before and after the investigation began. She feared her sister had become radicalized and was preparing to leave Canada to join ISIL with Jamali.
“We are corrupt by staying in Canada. Here in Canada we hide the true words of the prophet (Muhammad). The imams are corrupt. The RCMP is everywhere in our mosques,” are some of the comments Rania attributed to her sister when she gave statements to INSET investigators.
“If you have to kill people to protect your Muslim brothers, you have to do it,” was the most potentially incriminating statement Rania relayed to INSET. She also told investigators that her sister told her she was willing to spend “15 to 20 years in prison in Canada” if she ended up being convicted for having fought in Syria for ISIL. Rania also told INSET that Jamali had sent her a six-minute-long video titled The Doctrine of the Mujahidins, featuring statements made by militant jihadists including Osama Bin Laden.
Djermane and Jamali were arrested after INSET learned they had new passports made when their parents hid their existing ones. They had also booked a trip to Greece, a country ISIL recommended its recruits use as a means to enter Turkey and then Syria to join them.
During Sabrine Djermane’s bail hearing, held in June 2015, it was clear that the statements Rania gave to INSET investigators had caused a rift between the sisters.
“I don’t see an inconvenience if the family is separated — if Rania sees no inconvenience. She is the one who would have to leave,” Sabrine Djermane said during her bail hearing on June 9, 2015, when asked what her family’s situation would be like if she lived with them while awaiting her trial.
During the bail hearing, Djermane’s parents said they were willing to make arrangements to have Rania live with an older sister if Sabrine were to be released on bail and live at home. Both Sabrine and Jamali were denied bail.
In December, the couple were acquitted on three charges: knowingly participating in or contributing to, directly or indirectly, any activity of a terrorist group for the purpose of enhancing the ability of any terrorist group to facilitate or carry out a terrorist activity; possessing explosive substances with the intention to put lives in danger or cause serious damage to property; and committing a criminal act for the profit of, or under the direction of, a terrorist group by being in possession of an explosive substance. Jamali was convicted of possession of an explosive substance without lawful excuse and was sentenced to the time he had served awaiting the outcome of his case.
In May, they both signed peace bonds acknowledging Canadian authorities had reasonable grounds to suspect they might carry out a terrorist act.