Edmonton police announced late Monday that they aren’t charging Somali refugee Abdulahi Hasan Sharif with terrorism.
Yet a former co-worker of the man suspected of stabbing an Edmonton police officer and running down four pedestrians says Sharif talked of genocide. Police found a black ISIS flag in the white Malibu that Sharif was allegedly driving.
Even Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the incident a terrorist attack on Sunday.
On Sunday, police indicted that he would be charged with at least one terrorism-related offense. Sharif, 30, is accused of going on a Saturday night rampage that included the stabbing of a police officer and a high-speed chase down crowded downtown streets that resulted in four pedestrians being struck by a U-Haul van.
No one was killed. Hasan has been charged with five counts of attempted murder, four counts of criminal flight causing bodily harm and possession of a dangerous weapon.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET) is now in charge of the investigation.
RCMP Superintendent Stacey Talbot tried to explain why Sharif has not been charged with terrorism. “The complexities of a terrorism investigation are vast. If warranted, further charges will be pursued.”
But a man who worked with Shaif says the Somali refugee was an ISIS sympathizer who “would rant” about “genocidal beliefs.”
“It was very incoherent. He would just bounce from idea to idea, tangent to tangent, just about what he believed in and he definitely had genocidal beliefs, you could say,” the former co-worker told CBC News.
The man added, “He had major issues with polytheists. He said they need to die. That sort of thing. I only had a handful of conversations with him about it; those only occurred when there were just two of us in the work room.”
Sharif came arrived in Canada in 2012. He entered the country at an official border crossing and claimed to be an asylum seeker.
