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But federal prosecutors dropped the uttering-threats case against Gonyou-McLean and formally stayed the charge in January. The RCMP’s terrorism case was anchored in secretly recorded conversations that Gonyou-McLean had with his mom, who reported to the Mounties that her son was going to exact revenge. But while his mother gave the RCMP the recorded conversations, the alleged threat was not actually captured on tape.

Since Gonyou-McLean was released on bail, his conditions have proved, at times, unbearable — leading to trouble with the law. One time, he smashed his ankle bracelet and another time, in November, he slipped out of the GPS device and was arrested hours later.

Off and on, since his original arrest, he’s spent 70 days in jail for breaching conditions. And his time in jail has not been without incident. While at the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre, he was housed with a 350-pound inmate who beat him up after his cherry-flavoured Twizzler Nibs went missing. Gonyou-McLean denied stealing the candy.

Following the recent theft charge, Gonyou-McLean is out on bail again and not jailed at the OCDC. The conditions of his latest bail release have been amended to give him a later curfew to accommodate Ramadan prayer schedules.

Other conditions remain the same, including forbidding him from communicating with convicted Ottawa terror twins Ashton and Carlos Larmond. Gonyou-McLean says he went to Rideau High School with them but hasn’t seen them since. His conditions also say he can’t access or view materials from any listed terrorist group, and must not possess any objects with an Islamic State logo.

Gonyou-McLean, who is a Muslim convert, has told the Citizen he’s being persecuted for simply exploring Islam.

gdimmock@postmedia.com

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