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At the beginning of 2007, there were allegations that Afghan prisoners who were captured by Canadian forces and transferred to Afghan custody, were tortured.

On 21 February 2007, Amnesty International Canada and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) filed a lawsuit against the Canadian Minister of National Defence, the Chief of the Defence Staff for the Canadian forces and the Attorney General of Canada in order to halt the transfer of Afghan prisoners. Plaintiffs specifically asked for a review of the Canadian prisoner transfer policy, and, in addition, claimed that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms should provide protection to the Afghan prisoners.

The case was dismissed. In March 2008, a federal judge stated that the Afghan prisoners have rights under both the Afghan Constitution and international law, but that they did not have rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This decision was upheld by the Court of Appeal in December 2008.

Mohammad Omar Aly Hassan, Ziyad Yaghi, and Hysen Sherifi are three Americans charged with conspiring to engage in various terrorist activities. The district court convicted them of various counts of conspiring to commit acts of terrorism abroad. Sherifi was also convicted of conspiring to kill members of the uniformed services within the United States.

The defendants had performed various overt acts in furtherance of a terrorist conspiracy, including travelling to the Middle East, participating in weapons trainings and creating a weapons arsenal, raising money for violent jihadist efforts, and posting about their extremist beliefs on social media.

On appeal to the Fourth Circuit, the appellants challenged their convictions on constitutional and evidentiary grounds. They first argued that the convictions were based on constitutionally protected speech (First Amendment). They also made various evidentiary challenges, including a challenge to the admissibility of lay and expert witness testimony, as well as social media videos and videos collected from defendant’s cell phone demonstrating weapon training. Finally, they challenged the sufficiency of the evidence to support their conviction.

The Court dismissed all of the appellant’s challenges and upheld the district court’s conviction on all of the charges.

On 29 September 2016, Amin Mohamed was sentenced by an Australian court to 5,5 years’ imprisonment for attempting to travel to Syria and fight there. Mr. Mohamed, a New Zealander, was convicted by a jury in October 2016 for booking flights to Turkey, and receiving the contact details of a man who would assist him (and others) getting from Turkey to Syria with the intention of fighting in the ongoing armed conflict there. In this venture, Mr. Mohamed had been assisted by Hamdi Alqudsi, another man convicted earlier in 2016 for assisting seven would-be foreign fighters with travel to Syria. Mr. Mohamed was prevented from undertaking this travel in September 2013 due to the revocation of his passport and will likely face deportation to New Zealand at the end of his imprisonment.