Canadian gets 10 years for trying to join terror group

The only Canadian ever to be convicted of seeking to join an overseas terrorist group was sentenced in a Toronto area courtroom today to 10 years in prison.

Mohamed Hersi, 28, was arrested at Toronto airport in 2011 as he tried to board a plane to his birth country of Somalia.

He was convicted in May of "attempting to participate in terrorist activity" and of counseling another person to participate in a terrorist activity, after he provided advice to an undercover policeman.

Prosecutors said he planned to join the Shebab, a Somali Islamist militia listed by the Canadian government as a banned terrorist group.
 

The Al-Qaeda-linked group has claimed responsibility for several attacks, including a commando assault on Nairobi's Westgate shopping mall last year that left at least 67 people dead.