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Sabrine Djermane was deeply curious about what ISIL was doing in Syria before she and her boyfriend, El Mahdi Jamali, were arrested on terror-related charges, a jury was told on Wednesday.

One of Djermane’s friends was called as a witness with the trial in its seventh week at the Montreal courthouse. Superior Court Justice Marc David placed a publication ban on the young woman’s name before she began to testify. The couple were arrested in April 2015.

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The friend described three events that occurred in the weeks before the couple were arrested that signalled to her that Djermane’s interest in what was going on in Syria had grown significantly. At the time, both women were students at Collège de Maisonneuve, where some were preoccupied with how fellow students had recently left Canada and were believed to have made efforts to join ISIL.

The first event, the witness said, was when she and Djermane decided to attend a conference, held at Université du Québec à Montréal, on Muslims and their place in communities where they live. She described it as a lecture on “being a good Muslim.”