“I have a licence to kill. I have a green light to kill. One soldier is all it takes. Just one.”— From the diary of Ayanle Hassan Ali(space)“I intended to go somewhere today but was stopped because I didn’t have socks. Something as simple as clothing worn on my feet kept me home. Was I being melodramatic? No, because I was willing to even don a substandard sock, but was without a pair. ‘Sock Sharaf’ as I like to call it, is a feeling of pride that I get when I have clean socks. A lot can be gauged about a person from their socks.”— From the diary of Ayanle Hassan Ali(space)There is no dispute that Ayanle Hassan Ali walked into a military recruitment centre in North York on March 14, 2016, and attacked several soldiers, swinging a kitchen knife.It’s right there in the agreed statement of facts between prosecution and defence.Was it a terrorist act? Certainly, jihadists who cleave to a war between civilizations — Muslims versus infidels — and have embraced a death cult obsession operate as if granted licence to kill, to maim, to wreak havoc. Radical Islamist websites urge believers to drive vehicles into crowds of innocents, to commit suicide bombings, to take up whatever weapon is at hand and slay even one kafir. Thus is global terrorism sowed.Crazy to most of us. Rational to them.Read more:Toronto man charged in military centre stabbing should be acquitted of terror-related charges, lawyers sayAccused in military recruitment centre stabbing to undergo mental health assessmentBut Ali, a 30-year-old Canadian born to Somali immigrant parents, is also diagnosed with schizophrenia. Forensic psychiatrists called to a Toronto courtroom this week by both prosecution and defence agree on this central point.The defendant’s symptoms first began to appear in late adolescence and had completely overwhelmed him on that March day, when he left his Etobicoke home with the intention of achieving martyr ...
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