Convicted ISIS kidnapper spotted in minimum security prison

Conservative public safety critic Frank Caputo has raised concerns after encountering a Calgary man, whom he believes to be an individual sentenced to 12 years for kidnapping on behalf of ISIS.

Conservative public safety critic Frank Caputo has raised concerns after encountering a Calgary man, whom he believes to be an individual sentenced to 12 years for kidnapping on behalf of the Islamic State, in a minimum-security prison.

Caputo brought national attention to the story of Hussein Borhot when discussing his prison accommodations on the Ben Mulroney show earlier this week.

“I’m the public safety critic for the Conservative Party,” Caputo explained to Mulroney. “One of the things I do is I visit penitentiaries to see how things are going. I visited a minimum security penitentiary in the prairies recently. I saw the name ‘Borhot’ and saw someone with the name ‘Borhot, H’ on their shirt — and I concluded that was Hussein Borhot.”

Caputo further explained that Corrections Service Canada has yet to confirm if the prisoner is indeed the same Borhot convicted for terrorism offences in 2022.

Before entering politics, Caputo, who had served as a prosecutor, gained a distinct insight into Canada’s penitentiary system through his training with the Parole Board of Canada.

As he explained on the Ben Mulroney Show, Caputo believes a supervisor might have given Borhot an “override,” allowing him to live in “townhouse-like” conditions in a minimum-security institution.

The Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta previously handed Borhot a 12-year sentence after he pleaded guilty to participating in terrorist activities and committing a kidnapping for the benefit of ISIS.

According to the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, Borhot — a 36-year-old Canadian citizen at the time of his 2022 conviction — left the country in 2014 to fight with the terrorist organization in Syria.

He admitted that he considered working as a suicide bomber but was eventually settled as an ISIS sniper.

Borhot then returned to Canada in 2020 and was arrested shortly after, following an undercover police sting.

Justice David Labrenz, the same judge who presided over the Coutts border blockade case in Lethbridge, accepted a joint submission from the Crown and defence in 2022, which called for an eight-year term for terrorist participation and four years for kidnapping, to be served consecutively.

Borhot is one of a small number of Canadians to be successfully prosecuted for alleged involvement with ISIS.

Earlier this year, a woman from Quebecwas similarly charged and convicted under terrorism offences and served only a symbolic single day in prison for also leaving Canada to join ISIS.
Another woman in British Columbia, meanwhile, is set to go to trial over her involvement with the terrorist organization in Syria.