Mohammed Hersi, a Toronto man convicted of trying to travel overseas to join a terrorist group, was sentenced Thursday morning in Brampton by Justice Deena Baltman.
Mr. Hersi never committed or plotted a specific act of violence. Rather, he was tossed in the clink
Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up!
in 2011 at Toronto's Pearson International Airport, where he was waiting to get on a flight to London with a connecting flight to Cairo.
He faced two terrorism charges after the RCMP alleged he was on his way to join al-Shabaab
... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda...
, a group of Islamist holy warriors based in Somalia.
Thursday's sentence stated that Mr. Hersi, now 28, should serve two consecutive five-year sentences. He would not be eligible for parole until halfway through the 10-year sentence.
In reading her sentencing decision, Justice Baltman said Mr. Hersi was "poised to become a terror tourist" and that she saw "no evidence of any rehabilitative potential on Mr. Hersi's part."
She declared that it was important to "send a clear message that such behaviour will result in lengthy prison sentences" and cited cases in both Canada and the U.S. where terrorism-related convictions resulted in severe punishments.
Justice Baltman said many letters of support written by Mr. Hersi's friends and family seemed to reject the outcome of his trial and that she could "only conclude that there is another side to him that his supporters have never seen or cannot accept."
She denounced Al-Shabaab as a "fanatical" terrorist group and concluded that Mr. Hersi "intended to participate in its violent jihadist activities," quoting several incriminating comments Mr. Hersi made in conversation with an undercover officer.
Prior to his arrest, police monitored Mr. Hersi, a university graduate who was working as a security guard in Toronto, for six months.
The undercover officer assigned to befriend him had posed as a consultant who was surveying the opinions of security guards.