Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 25, 2015, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A4 A 4 WINNIPEG FREE PRESS, SUNDAY, JANUARY 25, 2015 winnipegfreepress. com NEW YORK - A Canadian man pleaded not guilty Saturday to U. S. charges that he sent money and provided other long- distance support to Tunisian jihadists believed responsible for a 2009 suicide attack in Iraq that killed five American soldiers. Faruq Khalil Muhammad ' Isa entered the plea in federal court in Brooklyn, where a magistrate judge jailed him without bail on charges of conspiring to kill Americans and providing material support to terrorists without ever leaving Canada. Muhammad ' Isa, who also goes by Sayfildin Tahir Sharif, is a 36- year- old Canadian citizen and Iraqi national. He was arrested in 2011 on a U. S. warrant after an investigation by authorities in New York, Canada and Tunisia. He was held in Edmonton until he lost an extradition fight claiming the U. S. had no jurisdiction in the case and was brought to New York City on Friday. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court of Canada declined to hear the arguments of his lawyers that RCMP didn't allow him access to a lawyer or interpreter the day of his arrest, and that he didn't understand what was going on. In a statement, U. S. Attorney Loretta Lynch said the case " demonstrates to those who orchestrate violence against our citizens and our soldiers that there is no corner of the globe from which they can hide from the long reach of the law." One of Muhammad ' Isa's American defence attorneys, Chase Scolnick, declined comment. Muhammad ' Isa is an ethnic Kurd who was born in Iraq but moved to Toronto as a refugee in 1993. Four years later, he became a Canadian citizen. An extradition request cited wiretap evidence and an interview of Muhammad ' Isa that U. S. authorities claim link him to the terror network. Authorities say the group used a suicide bomber to detonate an explosives- laden truck outside the gate of the U. S. base in Mosul, Iraq, on April 10, 2009, killing the soldiers, and staged a separate suicide bombing on an Iraqi police station on March 31, 2009, that killed seven people. During the interview, Muhammad ' Isa admitted he corresponded by email with two of the terrorists while they were in Syria, and that they were on a mission to kill Americans, the paperwork said. The documents allege he corresponded with " facilitators" who were trying to get the attackers into Iraq, and wired one of them $ 700. On wiretaps, Muhammad ' Isa was overheard discussing with someone in Iraq how he used code words when discussing the Iraq operation, the papers said. " For example, when I want to name the brothers, I say the farmers - because they plant metal and harvest metal and flesh," the papers quoted him as saying. He also explained that he used the term " married" to mean " in the afterlife." U. S. authorities alleged that the day after the attack on the U. S. base, Muhammad ' Isa asked in an electronic communication, " Did you hear about the huge incident yesterday? Is it known?" He also identified the bomber as " one of the Tunisian brothers," to which a facilitator responded, " Praise God." Muhammad ' Isa told investigators in the interview that by " huge incident" he meant an explosion, the papers said. He was arrested in 2011 at an Edmonton apartment where he lived with his girlfriend and her children. Canada's justice minister granted extradition in 2013 after receiving assurances from the U. S. he wouldn't face the death penalty if convicted. His lawyers asked the Supreme Court to stop his extradition after the Alberta Court of Appeal upheld it in August. They argued in addition to RCMP failing to allow their client access to a lawyer or interpreter the day of his arrest, they said allegations against him came from three people - including his brother - who were tortured by investigators in Iraq. The Appeal Court agreed the extradition judge should not have outright rejected the torture allegations by Sharif's brother. It also said the judge should have asked the federal attorney general to disclose evidence about the brother's interrogation or strike the evidence from the deportation proceedings. Still, the appeal judges wrote, those failures weren't enough to stop the extradition because it said the information obtained from that interview constituted a " minute part of the information contained in the record of the case." The Appeal Court also said Sharif had access to a lawyer after his arrest, was aware of his right to silence and was not intimidated by investigators. As usual, the Supreme Court did not give reasons for its decision not to hear the case. If convicted, Muhammad ' Isa could face a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. No date was set for another court appearance. - with files from The Canadian Press a publication from the MIND MIND Call: 204- 697- 7001/ 1- 800- 542- 8900 Email: fpcirc@ freepress. mb. ca Online: winnipegfreepress/ subscribe- new/ SUBSCRIBETODAY! w/ MIND GAMES 45 Puzzles and games tochallengeyourmind includingmany made in Manitoba CROSSWORDS .. SODOKU .. WORDSLEUTH .. SCRABBLE KENKEN .. SODATU .. HIDATO .. BANANAGRAMSAND40MORE SEPTEMBER20, 2014 1 N U M BER $ 2.99 Includes Free delivery to your door every Friday The perfect addition to your Sunday! PUZZLE BOOK Canadian denies jihadi aid Pleads not guilty to U. S. charge of helping Tunisians in attack By Tom Hays DAVOS, Switzerland - Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird and his American counterpart discussed a number of issues Saturday at the World Economic Forum. Baird met with U. S. Secretary of State John Kerry on the margins of the forum in Davos, Switzerland. A statement says their talks ranged from the United States' reengagement in Cuba to the fight against the Islamic State, the Palestinian Authority's attempt to join the International Criminal Court and the Trans- Pacific Partnership trade and investment negotiations. The statement says Kerry gave thanks for Canada's help in the negotiations with Cuba, which led to last month's announcement that the U. S. and Cuba will normalize relations after more than 50 years of hostility. - The Canadian Press Baird, Kerry hold talks at Davos summit OTTAWA - Some people have been crying foul over the lack of ethnic chicken in Canada. Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz got an earful from customers who couldn't find particular poultry, a newly released document shows. " Concerns about the availability of ethnic chicken have largely focused on supplies of specialty birds ( e. g. chicken from the Silkie and Taiwanese breeds), kosher and Hong Kong chicken," the document says. The Canadian Press obtained the four- page document under the Access to Information Act. It says complaints flooded Ritz's office after the May 2013 closure of Toronto- based Chai Poultry, one of Canada's two suppliers of kosher chicken. Chai Poultry sold its quota of chicken allocation to a halal processing plant based in the southern Ontario of town of Milton. Under the country's supply- management system - which controls the production of cheese, dairy and poultry through marketing boards - farmers are allotted a certain quota, which they can sell. Foreign competition, meanwhile, is limited through the use of tariffs. Chai Poultry's closure left only Montreal's Marvid Poultry to supply kosher chicken - which led to some of the grousing. " These initial complaints related to limited supplies, poor quality and high prices arose when Toronto- based ( blank) ceased operations in May 2013," says the document, in which Chai Poultry's name is censored. Last April, the Chicken Farmers of Ontario issued a request for proposals for a new kosher- chicken processing plant. But it seems none of the companies that responded fit the bill. " None of the five applications were found to meet ( blank) requirements and the process continues to find a kosher supplier," the document says. Agriculture and Agri- Food Canada also got complaints in 2012 about an Ontario company's supply of Hong Kong chicken - birds that are processed with their heads and feet still attached, a style preferred by many Asian immigrants. The company's name is blanked out in the copy of the document provided to The Canadian Press. There haven't been any specific gripes about halal chicken. That's poultry Muslims are allowed to eat under Islamic law. " There are ample supplies of halal chicken in the Canadian market," the document says. In an emailed response, Agriculture Department spokesman James Watson would only say " management of the supply of ethnic chicken remains the responsibility of provincial marketing boards." - The Canadian Press Feds hear beefs on lack of ethnic chicken DAVID LIPNOWSKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Maestro mayor Mayor Brian Bowman briefly took over conductor duties from the WSO's Alexander Mickelthwate at the Centennial Concert Hall Saturday during Beethoven's Fifth: Beyond the Score. JONATHAN HAYWARD / THE CANADIAN PRESS Canadians have been crying foul over the lack of specialty birds in Canada. A_ 04_ Jan- 25- 15_ FP_ 01. indd A4 1/ 24/ 15 10: 45: 30 PM ;