A former Quebec university student on trial for terrorism in Senegal said a money transfer allegedly intended to get him to Syria was in fact meant for him to return to school in Canada, a court in the Senegalese capital of Dakar heard Thursday.

The criminal trial is the first opportunity that Assane Kamara has had to plead his innocence since he was arrested in January 2016. He was taken into custody at the airport after trying to travel to Tunisia.

Among the discoveries made by police were receipts from Western Union for money transfers worth the equivalent of more than $1,500, according to a report from the trial. One of the friends named by Senegalese officials as having sent Kamara money, Harris Catic, told the Star in 2016 that he sent a simple present through the mail at Ramadan to thank Kamara for having taught him Arabic and verses from the Qur’an.

It was Kamara’s mother who brought his case to light. Concerned that he had cut himself off from family members while in Canada, she sought out her son and found him leading prayers at Edmonton’s Sahaba mosque. She later forced him to return to Senegal.

She told investigators her son had become radicalized while studying economics at Université de Sherbrooke in eastern Quebec, as well as later while living in Edmonton with three friends from Quebec. The trio — Samir Halilovic, Youssef Sakhir and Zakria Habibi — fled Canada in the following months to join Daesh, also known as the Islamic State.

At his trial Thursday, Kamara admitted his friendship with the three men, but said he was different.

“I did not aspire to violent jihad like them. Jihad is an Islamic principle that allows you to make efforts to improve the practice of your Muslim faith,” he said, according to a Senegalese news website covering the trial. “My mother’s worries were not justified.”

The trial did not hear any evidence of Kamara’s Facebook exchange with Halilovic from July 2014 in which he tried to arrange a “prison break” to travel from Senegal to Turkey to meet his friends shortly before they crossed into Syria and joined Daesh, which the Star reported on exclusively in 2016.

Testifying on Kamara’s behalf were an older brother as well as his fiancé of several years.

“I don’t consider Assane to be a jihadist. He’s not a violent person. He’s calm. He prays, he fasts. He warns against what is bad and endorses what is good. He has always been determined to marry me. I have faith in him,” said his fiancé, Mariama Camara, according to Aliou Diouf, a legal affairs reporter who reported from the courtroom.

Asked by his lawyer, Ousmane Seye, if he had ever considered killing for a cause, Kamara said: “Never.”

“I’m not radical. I try to be in conformity with my religion.”

Prosecutor Aly Ciré Ndiaye asked the court to find Kamara guilty of being involved in a criminal association with a terrorist group and a terrorist financing charge. He is seeking a five-year prison sentence in the case.

“The crime of financing terrorism occurs even if the money was not used to commit an act,” he said, according to Diouf’s account of the trial.

Seye, Kamara’s defence lawyer, said a person cannot be convicted on the basis of rumours.

“There is the presumption of innocence, but we have the impression that the prosecution would prefer the presumption of guilt,” he told the court.

At the end of the hearing, once lawyers had made their sentencing submissions to the judge, Kamara pleaded for mercy with the court. He noted that his father had died only a few days ago.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

“Today my mother has lost her husband. Please give her back her son,” he said.

The court will deliver a verdict in the case on April 9.

Read more about: