Ismael Habib’s girlfriend in Gatineau thought he was too involved with ISIS, while his Kalashnikov rifle-toting wife in Syria told him he was not involved enough, and he should move his rear end to the war zone.



The two women did not get along, with Habib ambivalent in the middle, speaking of a “loving relationship” with the girlfriend while assuring his wife he was eagerly on his way to the paths of glory.



Now a judge has clarified his future. Quebec Court Judge Lynne Landry gave Habib a jail sentence of nine months on Tuesday for threatening to set off a bomb in his girlfriend’s car while she and her young son were in it.



He was also convicted of criminal harassment of the girlfriend and having false identification, but the three months he received for those convictions will run concurrent with the sentence for the death threat.



This is a relatively minor sentence compared to the big one waiting for Habib in Montreal. In a separate trial there, he was convicted recently of trying to leave Canada to join a terrorist organization, and the sentence is expected this Friday. The Crown has asked for nine years; his defence lawyer wants six-and-a-half years.



Habib, a Montreal native, has already served 19 months because he was denied bail after his arrest in 2016.



In Gatineau on Tuesday, Judge Landry told Habib (by video link in detention) that she didn’t trust him.



He lied from the start, she said, telling his new girlfriend that he was divorced. That continued until she overheard him still carrying on a relationship with his wife in Syria, and realized that they were in fact still married. She also found out about his violent ISIS videos, and his plans to travel to the Middle East to fight — things he had hidden from her.



She confronted him, and he threatened to bomb her car if she revealed his plans to police. That is when she went to Gatineau police.



(The girlfriend cannot be named, by court order.)



Judge Landry said she didn’t believe Habib when he testified. She said even at his sentencing proceedings last week, he was trying to minimize his actions and showed little sign of having a conscience.



She called his actions “insidious and pernicious” and said he caused the girlfriend to live in fear.



Still, she acknowledged, he hadn’t committed a violent act.



The nine-month sentence lies between what the Crown asked for (18 months) and what his defence lawyer Jacques Belley wanted (three months). Belley later said the sentence was reasonable.



Habib listened quietly, visible on the TV screen in the courtroom on Tuesday. At the end the judge said: “Good luck, Mr. Habib.”



“Thank you,” he replied.