OTTAWA — The police in Canada have arrested a Toronto-area man who asserted he was an ISIS executioner, accusing him of perpetrating a hoax that he was involved in terrorist activities. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said the man, Shehroze Chaudhry, 25, “claimed he traveled to Syria in 2016 to join the terrorist group ISIS and committed acts of terrorism.” The interviews he gave to media outlets, the national police force said, raised “public safety concerns amongst Canadians.”Sgt. Lucie Lapointe, a spokeswoman for the Mounted Police, said that Mr. Chaudry was the person featured extensively in “Caliphate,” a podcast by The New York Times, under the name Abu Huzayfah. “The uncertainty about Abu Huzayfah’s story is central to every episode of Caliphate that featured him,” Danielle Rhoades Ha, a Times spokeswoman, said in a statement. She noted that one episode confirmed that Abu Huzayfah had misled The Times about the dates of his travel to Syria and the timeline of his radicalization.

Source: New York Times September 26, 2020 20:26 UTC