A Canadian citizen has been sentenced to life imprisonment in the United States for supporting the jihadist militia “Islamic State” (IS). The 39-year-old Mohammed Khalifa traveled to Syria in 2013 and quickly assumed a leading position within IS, the US Department of Justice said yesterday. According to this, he was a leading member of a group of jihadists that produced IS propaganda videos.
The group was responsible, among other things, for videos of executions of foreign hostages, including US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, who were beheaded in 2014, according to the ministry. Khalifa also provided the English voice acting for two “extremely brutal” ISIS execution videos from 2014 and 2017, in which he himself can be seen executing Syrian soldiers. The Saudi Arabian-born jihadist is also said to be featured in recruitment videos calling for attacks in Europe.
In January 2019, he was captured by Kurdish units during fighting in Syria. That same year, Khalifa gave an interview to Canadian television network CBC that was taped while in prison in Syria. In it he showed no remorse and stated that he wanted to return to Canada with his wife and three children – on condition that he would not be tried there. In 2021 he was handed over to the US authorities.
