Man with al Qaeda ties likely to plead guilty to terror offence in Montreal: lawyer

A patrol car is parked in front of the RCMP headquarters in Montreal, on March 7, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christinne Muschi

A man with ties to al-Qaida who allegedly threatened to bomb public transit will likely plead guilty, his lawyer said Monday at the Montreal courthouse.

Mohamed Abdullah Warsame, 51, appeared in court by video conference from Montreal’s Rivière-des-Prairies detention centre, where he waived his right to a bail hearing.

Warsame was arrested June 5 and later charged with uttering threats after allegedly telling an employee at a Montreal homeless shelter he wanted to build bombs and detonate them on public transit.

His lawyer, Vincent Petit, asked Warsame on Monday to acknowledge that he is waiving a bail hearing.

“What that means is that you recognize that if we were to do the bail hearing right now with the guarantees that we could offer to the Crown today, a judge would come to the conclusion that your detention is necessary.”

Warsame said he understood, and Quebec court Judge Joëlle Roy ordered the accused detained.

Petit told Roy there is a “realistic probability” Warsame will plead guilty. And the defence lawyer invited his client to appear in person at the next scheduled court date, Oct. 1. Warsame refused, saying he preferred to appear from jail by video conference.

Last week, prosecutor Samuel Monfette-Tessier invoked a little-used provision on terrorism in the Criminal Code that could result in Warsame receiving a sentence of life in prison if he is found guilty.

The maximum sentence for uttering threats is usually five years, the prosecutor said, but now if the accused is convicted he could spend life in prison.

“This also means the charge of uttering threats is now considered a terrorism offence,” Monfette-Tessier said at the time.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency described Warsame as a Canadian national when it deported him to Canada in 2010. The agency said he pleaded guilty in Minnesota in 2009 to providing material support to the terrorist organization al-Qaida.

He had no fixed address at the time of his latest arrest.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 14, 2025.