Kimberley Polman, a dual Canadian-U.S. citizen, pleaded guilty last month to leaving Canada to participate in activities of a terrorist group, and a court statement of facts includes her 2019 letter from Syria.
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Kimberley Polman, a dual Canadian-U.S. citizen from British Columbia, pleaded guilty last month to leaving Canada to participate in activities of a terrorist group, and a statement of facts filed in her terrorism case includes a handwritten “Dear Canadians” letter she wrote in a Syrian detention camp.
In the letter dated April 3, 2019, Polman said her decision to join the Islamic State was a “terrible mistake,” writing that “I regret constantly and will for the rest of my life.” She described having been “thrown into a world of intense fear” and said her desire to help “turned into my own need for help.”
Polman asked to be allowed to return to Canada for protection, writing that she “spoke out against ISIS” and saying she was “a traitor to them” who “must be killed.” In the letter, she also said she was “an innocent woman” and that “I survived ISIS. Now I want to live as I am — a Canadian.”
The statement of facts says Polman converted to Islam in 2003 and, about a decade later, began researching Islamic extremist ideology and communicating with others who held those beliefs. It says that in 2014 she met Suhayb Muhammad Adan, described as a Kenyan man of Somali descent, and “entered into a marriage” with him that summer.
According to the statement, by July 2015 Polman had formulated a plan to leave Canada to emigrate to Syria to join her husband and the Islamic State. The statement says data obtained from her computer showed she knew the Islamic State was a terrorist entity, that Syria was an active war zone, and that she could be arrested for attempting to leave Canada to join the group.
The statement says that in July 2015 Polman—who had two adult children in Canada—went to a Flight Centre in Surrey, B.C., and booked return flights to Vienna, Austria, then continued to Turkey to meet Adan and never used the return tickets.
After travelling through Turkey, the statement says Polman arrived in Islamic State-controlled territory in Syria by August 2015 and, upon arrival, forfeited her U.S. passport. It says she remained in Syria for about seven years.
The statement says Adan divorced her in January 2016, and that Polman later worked in the Islamic State hospital in Raqqa, caring for infants and children until February of an unspecified year. It adds that in October 2016 Polman married Safraz Ali, described as a Trinidadian Islamic State member who “produced explosives and IEDs.”
The statement says U.S.-backed forces declared the liberation of Raqqa in October 2017, and that Polman and Ali moved to different towns in Syria as the group lost territory. It says Polman was captured by coalition forces on Jan. 27, 2019, just outside the Baghouz area, which is described as the last ISIS stronghold in Syria.
Polman remained in Syrian detention camps for almost four years. The statement says Global Affairs Canada agreed to repatriate her in October 2022, and that she arrived in Montreal later that month and was arrested there.
Her trial was scheduled to begin Nov. 9 but the dates were vacated after she pleaded guilty in October. A spokeswoman for the Public Prosecution Service of Canada said sentencing hearing dates had not yet been scheduled, and Polman is set to appear in court next week, according to an email provided with the statement of facts.
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