Canada is to investigate claims that one of its spies smuggled British teenager Shamima Begum and her two friends into Syria in 2015.
Prime minister Justin Trudeau said he will “look at” the accusations to ensure rules were followed, but he defended the intelligence services, who he said keep the country safe “in a very dangerous world.”
Ms Begum was 15 when she and two other schoolgirls from London – 16-year-old Kadiza Sultana and 15-year-old Amira Abase – went to Syria to join Isis.
The teenagers were trafficked into Syria by a double agent who was working for Isis and Canadian intelligence, according to excerpts from an upcoming book,The Secret History of the Five Eyes.
“The fight against terrorism requires our intelligence services to continue to be flexible and to be creative in their approaches,” Mr Trudeau told reporters at a news conference.
“But every step of the way, they are bound by strict rules by principles and values that Canadians hold dear, including around the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and we expect that those rules be followed.
“I know there are questions about certain incidents or operations of the past and we will ensure to follow up on this,” he added.
The BBC has also reported a senior intelligence officer confirmed that double agent Mohammed Al Rasheed was providing information to Canadian intelligence while smuggling people to Isis. He claimed the information he had gathered on the people who wanted to go to Syria was passed along to the Canadian embassy in Jordon.
The Secret History of the Five Eyes, authored by Richard Kerbaj, a former security correspondent for The Sunday Times, also claims Canada kept silent even as Scotland Yard ran a frenetic international search for Begum. The book, whose title refers the Five Eyes western espionage alliance of the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, also says British and Canadian intelligence services conspired to cover up the spy’s role.
Canada hired Mr Rasheed as an agent when he was applying for asylum at the Canadian embassy, according to the book.
The book quotes an unidentified source as saying: “The CSIS [Canadian Security Intelligence Service] officers knew that Scotland Yard had a live investigation into the three schoolgirls and also knew that sooner or later the finger would point at them.”
“CSIS remained silent about the explosive allegations, taking refuge in the one thing that protects all intelligence agencies, including those within the Five Eyes, against potential embarrassment: secrecy.”
