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“The trial judge’s approach would erase the distinction between lone wolf terrorists and ordinary criminals,” prosecutors said. “A lone actor who commits an act of serious violence for a religious or ideological purpose, intending to intimidate the public, should be stigmatized with a Section 83 terrorism conviction.”

The attack lasted less than a minute.

On Mar. 14, 2016, Ali forced his way into the Yonge St. recruiting centre intent on becoming a jihadi martyr. “I have a licence to kill, I have a green light to kill,” Ali had written in his diary. “One soldier is all it takes, just one.”

He punched the first soldier repeatedly in the head, took a large kitchen knife from his folder and lunged at him, leaving a three-inch gash in the corporal’s arm.

When a sergeant rushed out of her office, Ali gave chase and narrowly missed slicing the back of her neck. He then tried to slash and stab at another sergeant, who in the chaos, had slipped on spilled coffee and fallen to the ground.

With his first blow, the blade hit the floor. Ali then continued stabbing him in the head and torso, but luckily, was now using the wrong end of his weapon.

After he was disarmed and restrained, Ali “appeared to be laughing, smiling, and giggling, and on something.” Others describe him as “not present” and “lost in the clouds.”

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He told a paramedic Allah sent him “to kill people.” He told forensic psychiatrists who later examined him that soldiers were a “legitimate target.”