Unpublished Newswire

A Crown prosecutor says a Calgary man who willingly joined and worked for an Islamic State terrorist group in the Middle East over a decade ago should spend 16 years in prison, while a defence lawyer has recommended 12 years.Jamal Borhot, 35, was convicted in December of three counts of participation in a terrorist group for assisting in the terrorist activities of ISIS in Syria in 2013.Court heard Mr. Borhot and his cousin Hussein Borhot illegally entered Syria through Turkey. Hussein Borhot pleaded guilty in a separate trial and was sentenced in 2022 to 12 years.

The murderer of a man whose brother was later arrested for the Lapu Lapu festival attack that killed 11 people in April 2025 has called it a “ripple effect” from his own crime 15 months earlier.Dwight Kematch, who pleaded guilty to the January 2024 second-degree murder of Alexander Lo in July, told his B.C. Supreme Court sentencing hearing in Vancouver that what followed the killing was a “horrendous tragedy.”