MONTREAL — A federal prosecutor has announced he will invoke a little-used provision on terrorism in the Criminal Code that would allow a man with al-Qaida ties to be sentenced to life in prison for allegedly uttering threats.
Prosecutor Samuel Monfette-Tessier told a Montreal courtroom on Monday that he's upgrading the charge against Mohamed Abdullah Warsame using Section 83.27 of the code. The maximum sentence for uttering threats is usually five years, the prosecutor said, but now if the accused is convicted he could spend life in prison.
"This also means the charge of uttering threats is now considered a terrorism offence," Monfette-Tessier told the court.
Warsame, 51, was charged last month with uttering threats after allegedly telling an employee at a Montreal homeless shelter on May 27 that he wanted to build bombs and detonate them on public transit. The Old Brewery Mission, which runs several homeless shelters in Montreal, contacted police. RCMP took charge of the investigation and announced Warsame's arrest on June 5.
The Criminal Code article states that a person who is convicted of an offence that normally carries a lesser term of imprisonment can be given a life sentence "where the act or omission constituting the offence also constitutes a terrorist activity."
Monfette-Tessier says he thinks the case marks the first time in Quebec that the Criminal Code section has been used.
"What this means is that the act that he is alleged to have committed would also be a terrorist activity under the Criminal Code, which means for a greater punishment," he told reporters outside the courtroom.
Warsame was psychologically evaluated after his June arrest, and the results have been sealed at the defence's request. Warsame's lawyer told the court that his client had declined to attend Monday's hearing.
The RCMP have said Warsame pleaded guilty in Minnesota in 2009 to providing material support to the terrorist organization al-Qaida. According to his 2009 plea agreement, the Somali-born Canadian travelled to Afghanistan in 2000 to attend al-Qaida training camps, where he met the organization's founder, Osama bin Laden. He later sent money to one of bin Laden's training camp commanders.
Warsame then relocated to Minneapolis, where he continued to provide information to al-Qaida associates throughout 2002 and 2003. He was arrested in December 2003. He spent five-and-a-half years in solitary before pleading guilty. And in 2009, Warsame was sentenced to 92 months in federal prison with credit for time served.
He was deported to Canada in 2010, and had no fixed address at the time of his latest arrest.
The case returns to court July 14.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 7, 2025.
— With files from The Associated Press.
Morgan Lowrie, The Canadian Press
