A West Island teenager facing terrorism charges sat quietly in court Wednesday, seemingly ignoring the trial that will decide his fate.
The teenager was arrested last year after robbing a depanneur, and he has already pleaded guilty to two charges related to that crime.
At the time he told police he planned to use the money to buy a plane ticket to a country that adhered to Sharia law because he felt he was among infidels in Canada.
The 15-year-old, who cannot be identified, stared at the floor and around the courthouse while the judge watched a video of the boy's interrogation by a police officer.
In that video the teen repeatedly stated he had no wish to participate in questioning.
When RCMP officer Brahim Soussi, who is also Muslim, tried to get the boy to explain why he robbed the store, and why he wanted to leave the country to join people fighting for Islamic State in the Middle East, the boy accused the officer of being an apostate, someone who has rejected their religion, and a traitor for serving the Canadian government.
When the officer reminded him that Canada welcomed his family when they emigrated from Algeria a decade ago, the boy reacted by saying he never chose to live in a country which sends soldiers to kill Muslims in the Middle East.
The teen said he didn't like Canada because it was a democracy, and should instead become a Muslim country. Again, the investigator asks him how he would achieve that, to which he answers: by force or by using terror.
When asked if good Muslims would steal, he said he did not consider robbing the depanneur something that is morally wrong. Instead he said the money he took from the store should be considered spoils of war taken from infidels, since Canada is at war with Islamic fighters in the Middle East.
When pressed by Soussi as to why he thought this way, the boy in the video said he learned this information on the internet.
The video then showed Soussi asking the boy if he thought the websites he had been visiting were showing all sides of the story, and if he was capable of making up his own mind.
As happened repeatedly during the two-hour interrogation, the boy then refused to say anything beyond voicing his refusal to take part in questioning.
When the judge had reviewed the interrogation video the boy's father took the stand to explain his deposition, and it was at this point that the teenager showed more interest in the proceedings.
It was the boy's father who alerted police to his son's behaviour after becoming concerned that was son was being brainwashed by radical Islam.
When RCMP investigators went through the boy's computer last year they found evidence of jihadist propaganda.
The trial continues Thursday.
