A Pakistani-origin man, who gained international notoriety on the basis of his claims of having been a hardened fighter for the Islamic State terror group, may have fabricated his entire account.
Shehroze Chaudhry, a 25-year-old from the town of Burlington in the Canadian province of Ontario, has been charged by law enforcement “in connection with a hoax regarding terrorist activity”.
Chaudhry gained prominence under the pseudonym Abu Huzayfah and was featured on The New York Times podcast Caliphate and in a documentary from Canada’s national broadcaster CBC.
In a statement issued on Friday, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) O Division Integrated National Security Enforcement Team or OINSET said he had been arrested and charged after a “lengthy investigation”.
The charge, it said, stemmed from “numerous media interviews where the accused” claimed to have “travelled to Syria in 2016 to join the terrorist group ISIS and committed acts of terrorism”. His interviews were widely published on various media platforms “raising public safety concerns amongst Canadians”.
He has been charged with “hoax terrorist activity”, and is scheduled to make a court appearance on November 16 in Brampton, Ontario.
In a statement, Superintendent Christopher deGale, the officer in charge of the RCMP’s OINSET, said, “Hoaxes can generate fear within our communities and create the illusion there is a potential threat to Canadians, while we have determined otherwise. As a result, the RCMP takes these allegations very seriously, particularly when individuals, by their actions, cause the police to enter into investigations in which human and financial resources are invested and diverted from other ongoing priorities.”
OINSET is committed to investigating cases of “foreign travellers”, individuals who either leave Canada to participate in terrorism abroad or return to the country after having done so.
According to the outlet Global News, Chaudhry’s social media profiles indicate he had left Canada for Pakistan in 2013 and studied at the University of Lahore’s Department of Environmental Science throughout 2014.
It also reported that in August 2017, he told the outlet he had used his Pakistani passport instead of the Canadian one to travel to Syria and join IS, and then returned to Pakistan via Turkey after getting “disillusioned”. Thereafter he moved back to Canada.
It also quoted the Caliphate podcast, in which he is alleged to have “described conducting public executions”. In one segment, he is alleged to have said, “I had to stab him multiple times. And then we put him up on a cross. And I had to leave the dagger in his heart.”