A woman who claimed to fight in the name of ISIS and attacked several Canadian Tire employees in June 2017 has been sentenced to seven years in prison.
Rehab Dughmosh was charged with four counts of attempted murder, four counts of assault with a weapon, three counts of carrying a weapon and two counts of carrying a concealed weapon. She told Justice Kimberley Crosbie that she understood all charges against her on Tuesday.
Superior Court Justice Maureen Forestell said that a court-ordered psychiatrist found that Dughmosh might be suffering from schizophrenia or an anxiety disorder leading to an extremist belief system.
Forestell said that Dughmosh’s mental illness “does not absolve her of responsibility, but it was clearly a causal factor.”
According to the agreed statement of facts presented in court on Wednesday, Dughmosh’s separated husband, Anas Hananfy, said he found Dughmosh with three bags full of weapons in the lobby of their Scarborough apartment building that evening.
Before she left for her terror attack at Canadian tire, Hanafy seized the three bags of weapons from her including homemade weapons. Police also found knives, scissors, a hammer, arrows, barbecue skewers, and other homemade weapons in her home.
Investigators also found a handwritten will by Dughmosh. In the will, she wrote and asked God to “grant me martyrdom for His sake, for the elevation of his religion and to take revenge from the criminal infidels.”
According to the statement of facts, “She wanted news of her own attack to be published, she believed ISIL would be happy with what she had done. She was disappointed that she failed to hurt anyone in her attack but also stated that the important thing was to try.”
According to recent court archives and medical records from jail, Dughmosh has been taking antipsychotic medications. Forestell said she has been “improving and co-operating with her treatment.”
“I don’t want to get legal advice because I don’t believe in your law and I’m still supporting ISIS,” she said in court Tuesday.
Dughmosh, who represented herself during the trial, was sentenced to seven years in prison on Thursday.
It started when 34-year-old Rehab Dughmosh’s travelled to Turkey in 2016. Her brother warned police in 2016 that Dughmosh was actually travelling to Turkey to join ISIS, not to visit family. The RCMP then notified the Turkish authorities about Dughmosh’s objectives and so she was refused entry in Turkey and returned back to Toronto.
After returning to Toronto and failing to join ISIS, Dughmosh planned another attack. On June 3, 2017 she went to the Canadian Tire located in Cedarbrae Mall in Scarborough and attacked several employees with a golf club and butcher’s knife. Canadian Tire employees were able to wrestle her down to the ground and called 911.
When Canadian Tire employee Kyle Craig asked why she came in the store, Dughmosh replied, “Revenge … to stop killing Muslims in Syria and Iraq. You’re killing ISIS, I’m from ISIS,” according to the statement of facts.
No one was reported injured during the incident.