accused. The judge, in his ruling, once again sided with Shaikh. At the end of the adult trial by jury of the remaining three persons in June 2010, after several others had pleaded guilty, a comprehensive presentation of previously-restricted information including court exhibits entered as evidence, complete with transcripts and video, was put forward by Isabel Teotonio of the Toronto Star. Zakaria Amara wrote a letter of apology and Faheem Ahmad gave an interview on his radicalization. In 2012, with the rise of ISIS, Shaikh was extensively involved in countering ISIS ideology and has presented at numerous conferences as an expert, on his efforts. He has trained military forces directly engaged in the fight against ISIS, including being a regular guest speaker with Defense Intelligence Agency as well at the United States Air Force Special Operations School. Shaikh is also part of the instructor cadre of Reticle Ventures, made up of former members and leaders of Joint Task Force 2 and other police and security agencies and services. In connection to his work on the ISIS Returnee file, Shaikh also had discussions with Abu Huzaifa al-Kanadi who was charged in September 2020 with terrorism hoax, in relation to his claims about having been an ISIS executioner in Syria. Shaikh is a co-author of the book Undercover Jihadi and recognized for his work and life in a permanent exhibit in the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. Education Shaikh has a Master of Policing, Intelligence, and Counter-Terrorism from Macquarie University, Australia. Personal life Shaikh was born at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto. He attended Quran school as a child as well as public school. At age 14, he joined the Royal Canadian Army Cadets attaining the rank of Cadet Warrant Officer. After an identity crisis because of a house party he went to Pakistan, where a chance encounter with the Taliban propelled him into extremism. The 9/11 attacks made him reconsider his views and he then spent 2 years in Syria augmenting previous private study of Islamic Studies where he went through a period of deradicalization, rejecting extremism and terrorism as anathema to Islam. He then returned to Canada and began his national security operations work. References External links https://web.archive.org/web/20181006004104/http://www3.thestar.com/static/toronto18/index.html 1975 births Living people 2006 Ontario terrorism plot People in counterterrorism People from Toronto Sunni Sufis Canadian Sufis Canadian Sunni Muslims Seneca College faculty