Man accused of plotting kidnappings with terror suspect entered Canada as an illegal border-crosser

One of three men accused of a kidnapping plot was an illegal border crosser whose refugee claim was denied in 2018.

Despite this, Azerbaijani national Osman Azizov was allowed to remain in Canada for a further six years, during which time he allegedly fell in with an ISIS sympathizer and hatched a plot to kidnap random women from the streets of Toronto, and also planned to violently target the Jewish community.

This is all according to records obtained in an exclusive investigation by Global News’ Stewart Bell.

In a Tuesday statement posted to X, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said, “This guy’s phoney refugee claim was rejected almost a decade ago and he’s still in Canada causing chaos.

“The Liberals will never fix immigration or the border — they broke both.”

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs said in a post on X that the issue “goes beyond confidence in the justice system,” and “raises serious public safety and national security concerns.”

Azizov, 18, was already notorious for receiving bail only days after he was arrested as an alleged accomplice in what police described as “armed, coordinated attempts to kidnap women.”

But according to Global, Azizov’s very presence in Canada was due to a cascading series of border security oversights.

Documents uncovered by Global revealed Azizov first entered Canada with his family in 2017 by illegally crossing the border near Lacolle, Que.

He would thus have been in the first wave of an unprecedented flood of what Canadian authorities would come to refer to as “irregular border-crossers.”

Shortly after the 2017 inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump, the White House implemented a ban on refugee admissions from six Muslim-majority nations.

This, in turn, prompted a social media statement from then prime minister Justin Trudeau declaring “to those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith.”

Within weeks, Canada was subject to a steady stream of foreign nationals entering the country illegally from the United States in order to claim asylum. By year’s end, border officials were tracking an average of 76 irregular border-crossers per day.

As per statistics maintained by the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, throughout 2018 only about half of the asylum claims being reviewed by authorities were approved, with the other half being charted as “abandoned” or “rejected.”

According to Global, Azizov’s family was placed in the “rejected” category. Their asylum claim was rejected in 2018, and appeals to both the Refugee Appeal Division and the Federal Court had run their course by 2019.

As to why he was still in the country, in 2024 Azizov reportedly qualified for a program allowing foreigners to stay in Canada on “humanitarian and compassionate considerations.”

As such, at the time of his arrest, Azizov would have held status as a permanent resident; typically the last stop before obtaining full Canadian citizenship.

In a Tuesday statement posted to X, Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel Garner wrote that Azizov’s permanent residency would have required the personal sign-off of a federal immigration minister.

As per the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, obtaining status based on “humanitarian” grounds is a special exemption requiring cabinet-level approval.

Any applicant can only be approved after a minister examines “the circumstances concerning the foreign national” and comes to the opinion that their protection is “justified by humanitarian and compassionate considerations.”

In doing so, the minister is also required to ensure that the foreign national is not “a danger to the security of Canada,” is not “engaging in terrorism,” and is not “engaging in acts of violence that would or might endanger the lives or safety of persons in Canada.”

“Which Liberal Minister gave this extremist sanctuary in Canada?” wrote Garner.

Azizov is not personally charged with terrorism. But he is accused of attempting to violently kidnap women with a man who is.

Waleed Khan, Azizov’s alleged accomplice in an attempted armed kidnapping of random Toronto women, was later accused by police of ties to ISIS.

Among several terrorism-related charges, Khan was accused of a “conspiracy to commit murder, for the benefit of, at the direction of or in association with a terrorist group.”