Islamic Terrorism in the West ( Mega thread)

[old medic]

Partner of accused terrorist to stand by her man
By Jim Brown, THE CANADIAN PRESS
23 March 2009

OTTAWA — The common-law wife of accused terrorist Hassan Diab says the romantic bloom is off their relationship — but she’s still willing to vouch for his innocence and keep tabs on him if he’s released on bail.

Rania Tfaily, testifying Monday at an Ontario Superior Court hearing, acknowledged she was “annoyed and upset” to discover last year that Diab was having an affair with another woman.,

But that doesn’t change the fact that, in her view, he can’t be guilty of a 1980 synagogue bombing that took four lives in Paris.

“I know his political views,” Tfaily, an assistant professor of demographics at Carleton University, told Justice Robert Maranger. “I know he’s disgusted by mass killing of innocent people.”

Diab, a Lebanese-born Canadian citizen and part-time instructor in sociology at both Carleton and the University of Ottawa, is seeking release on bail while he awaits an extradition hearing later this year.

French authorities want to try him in Paris on charges of murder, attempted murder and destruction of property in the synagogue attack nearly three decades ago.

Tfaily has offered to be Diab’s principal surety, the person responsible for monitoring him and seeing that he abides by any bail conditions.

“It’s not out of love,” she testified. “He’s a nice man but I’m not in love with him. . . . After some time love wears off.”

Nevertheless, said Tfaily, she couldn’t live with herself if she let a man she believes to be innocent remain in jail out of jealousy.

“He’s not charged with marital infidelity,” she said. “This is a criminal case.”

Crown prosecutors oppose Diab’s release. They say there’s a risk he could flee given the seriousness of the charges he faces in France.

But defence lawyer Donald Bayne questioned the strength of the French case, saying the evidence offered would never stand up to scrutiny in Canada.

“This is an extremely weak, criminal case,” said Bayne, arguing that the eyewitness identifications, handwriting analysis and secret intelligence used to buttress the French charges are all suspect.

Diab has told the court he’s willing to abide by whatever bail conditions are imposed, including the wearing of an electronic monitoring device to ensure he remains in the Ottawa area.

Crown attorney Suzanne Schriek raised questions about how Tfaily can act as an effective overseer of bail conditions, given the fact that Diab has deceived her in the past about his travels and his relationships with other women.

She painted him as a man who has engaged in a series of “marriages of convenience” over the years, with extensive contacts in several countries that make him a risk to flee Canada before the extradition can be concluded.

 

[leroi]

Are We Safe Yet?
Eight Years After 9/11, Canada is Still Far From Secure

http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2009.05-security-are-we-safe-yet/

The Walrus: April 19, 2009
Daniel Stoffman

(Reproduced in accordance with the Fair Dealing Provision of the Copyright Act.)

Imagine, if you will, the following scenario: Terrorists on a small ship approach the Atlantic coast of North America. They’ve got one medium-range missile to carry one small nuclear weapon. As it detonates at high altitude, the bomb triggers a surge of electromagnetic radiation. Voltage spikes fry electrical and electronic equipment. Lights, phones, TV, radio — nothing works. The food in the fridge is rotting. Water stops flowing from taps, because the electrical systems that govern the local reservoir are dead. Dead, too, is the ignition in your car. In the worst-case scenario, we are effectively thrown back to pre-modern times. We have to relearn the survival skills of our ancestors. The hardiest make it, but many don’t.

An electromagnetic pulse attack is the sort of thing that keeps counterterrorism experts up at night. Depending on the blast’s size and location, such an attack could leave all of North America in primitive conditions. The emp threat typifies the terrorist threat. The chances of it happening are low at any given time. But it could happen, because there are international terrorists with the motivation, brains, and patience to pull it off. Osama bin Laden has said it is his “religious duty” to acquire nuclear weapons to attack the West. And al Qaeda has repeatedly cited Canada as one of its targets.

In another nuclear nightmare, terrorists detonate a weapon on the ground. On October 11, 2001, a cia agent code named Dragonfire reported that al Qaeda had stolen a ten-kiloton bomb in Russia and successfully smuggled it into New York City. Exploded at noon in midtown Manhattan, the bomb would have killed 500,000 people immediately, and hundreds of thousands more from collapsing buildings, fire, and fallout.

Dragonfire turned out to be wrong, and the intervening years have seen no major attacks on North American soil. But does that mean we’re safe? Graham Allison, an expert on the threat of nuclear terrorism and director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, puts the answer this way: “If the US and other governments just keep doing what they are doing today, a nuclear terrorist attack in a major city is more likely than not by 2014.”

The attacks by al Qaeda on September 11, 2001, killed 2,974 people, including twenty-four Canadians. Since then, authorities in this country have taken several steps to make life harder for terrorists. John Thompson, who heads the Mackenzie Institute, a Toronto-based think tank that studies political instability and organized violence, has a three-part answer to the question of whether or not these measures have made us safer: “Yes, no, and maybe.”

On the face of it, we should be safer. After 9/11, the federal government rushed the Anti-terrorism Act into law, giving police and intelligence agencies broad new powers, including enhanced use of electronic surveillance and the right to arrest people suspected of planning to commit a terrorist act. As well, Ottawa reorganized its security apparatus: It created the new Department of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, to improve coordination and information sharing among agencies responsible for national security. It gave the Communications Security Establishment new powers to eavesdrop on private communications. It created the Integrated Threat Assessment Centre. And it launched integrated national security enforcement teams in various parts of Canada, with the aim of disrupting and preventing terrorist activities. There have also been other, more modest improvements. Checked baggage is now screened at Canadian airports, reducing the danger of another Air India disaster. Closed-circuit TV and an increased police presence are helping to protect Canadian transit systems.

All told, we’re now spending $25 billion a year on national security — a figure that encompasses defence, the rcmp, intelligence services, and air, border, and coastal security. Not included in that estimate is the value of the time spent by air travellers lining up to empty their pockets and take off their shoes at security checkpoints. Slowdowns because of increased security at the US land border are costing individuals and businesses millions more. Then there is the curtailed privacy that comes with counterterrorism. It’s too late to do anything once the suicide bomber has walked through the turnstile of the subway station; you have to find out about his plans before he puts them into action, which means security operatives must snoop and watch and eavesdrop. Citizens of totalitarian countries take such things for granted. Most Canadians don’t, at least not yet.

Martin Rudner, founding director of the Canadian Centre of Intelligence and Security Studies at Carleton University, believes the costs of security are worth it. “There is no question in my mind,” he says, “that the reason Canada has been spared a deadly attack since 9/11 is not because the terrorists haven’t tried, but because counterterrorism has succeeded.” To take one example, the strategy of pre-emptive enforcement saw its first visible results last fall, when Canadian prosecutors won their first convictions under the Anti-terrorism Act.

Neither of the convicted individuals had actually committed an act of terrorism, but both, the courts decided, were helping to prepare for such acts. One of them was only seventeen in 2006, when he was arrested for attending two training camps held by the so-called “Toronto 18” cell. He also stole things for the group, which was allegedly scheming to bomb targets in Ontario and behead Prime Minister Stephen Harper. In another case, an Ottawa software developer was found guilty of conspiring to set off fertilizer bombs in England in 2004.

In both instances, the threats were from Islamist terrorism, which has become nearly synonymous with terrorism itself. “Islamist,” in this context, means a radical fundamentalist who rejects the concept of a secular, democratic state, and is prepared to use violence to impose a rigid theocratic rule on society. Of course, not all terrorists are Islamic fundamentalists, but non-Islamist terror groups, such as the Tamil Tigers, are obsessed with local struggles. Most pose little threat to Canada, with the major exception thus far being the Sikh separatists who planted bombs on two airplanes departing from Canada on June 22, 1985, killing a total of 331 people.

Al Qaeda has named Western democracies in general, and Canada in particular, as its enemies. In November 2002, Osama bin Laden warned in a statement broadcast on the Arabic television station Al Jazeera that Canada would be attacked because of its participation in the war in Afghanistan. “What do your governments want from their alliance with America in attacking us in Afghanistan?” he asked. “I mention in particular Britain, France, Italy, Canada, Germany, and Australia. Why should fear, killing, destruction, displacement, orphaning, and widowing continue to be our lot, while security, stability, and happiness be your lot? This is unfair. It is time that we get even. You will be killed just as you kill, and will be bombed just as you bomb.”

In 2004, an al Qaeda manual named Canada as the terrorists’ fifth most important “Christian” target. The people making these threats, says Rudner, are “well-educated intellectuals. Many of the mujahedeen of al Qaeda are engineers and doctors and other professionals. They mean what they say.”

One hundred and fifty jihadist plots have been identified in Europe, North America, and Australia since 9/11. Because of counterterrorism, few have been successful, with the notable exceptions of the attacks on the Madrid commuter trains in 2004, and the London transit system in 2005. Some of the failed plots would have had devastating results. In December 2001, a British convert to Islam tried to blow up a transatlantic flight carrying 198 people by igniting explosives in his shoe. In June 2007, terrorists left two car bombs in central London. One of the cars contained sixty litres of gasoline, gas cylinders, and nails. It was parked outside a nightclub, and if detonated would have killed hundreds of people. In February in London, a trial began of eight men charged with conspiring to kill thousands of people in 2006, by blowing up seven transatlantic planes using liquid bombs made from soft drink bottles and batteries. Two of the targets were Air Canada flights destined for Toronto and Montreal.

The scale of the threat is yet another reason to take it seriously. In 1993, al Qaeda started trying to buy highly enriched uranium in Sudan. And al Qaeda documents seized in Afghanistan gave details of the terror network’s attempts to obtain nuclear materials over several years, until they were expelled from the country after 9/11. “Nothing we know about al Qaeda’s ideology suggests they would have any inhibitions about using such weapons if they could acquire them,” says Wesley Wark, a terrorism expert at the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto. “A group with that capacity may simply be undeterrable, both in terms of measures the state would take and any phenomenon of self-deterrence — so, an intent to acquire them and use them, and no restraints. That is why the nightmare is a nightmare.”

According to Matthew Bunn, co-principal investigator of the Project on Managing the Atom at Harvard’s Belfer Center, the ingredients for nuclear weapons exist in hundreds of buildings in forty countries. Some sites are secure, he says, but others “have little more than a night watchman and a chain-link fence.” Once terrorists obtained nuclear material, it would be easy for them to import it into Canada; only 4 percent of containers arriving at our ports are inspected to determine their contents.

Another weapon of mass destruction is biological. To grasp the potential of such an attack, consider a war game called Dark Winter that was conducted by the United States just prior to 9/11 to simulate the effects of a smallpox strike. In the exercise, six days after the first identified case, in Oklahoma City, 2,000 people had the disease and 300 were dead. The worst case predicted by the simulation saw three million Americans infected and one million killed. Should this actually happen, hundreds of thousands of Canadians could die, too.

(page 2 on link above)

Edit: Re-format

 

[leroi]

Toronto Man Charged With Trying To Export Nuclear Technology To Iran

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/04/17/toronto-rcmp-arrest-nuclear-uranium-trandsducers.html

(Placed here in accordance with the Fair Dealing Provision of the Copyright Act.)


CBC News: April 17, 2009

A Toronto man is facing charges of illegally trying to export nuclear technology to Iran, the RCMP said Friday. The charges stem from an alleged attempt to illegally move pressure transducers from Boston to Toronto and onto Dubai, with Iran as the final destination, police said.

"The declared point of destination was Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. However, we have evidence to support the fact that its ultimate destination was Iran," RCMP Insp. Greg Johnson told a press conference.

The pressure transducers that were seized are used in the uranium enrichment process for weapons-grade products, Johnson said. The transducers have a legitimate commercial use but also can be used for military purposes, the RCMP said.

Police confirmed at least two devices were seized and some of the devices were found when a search warrant was executed in Toronto.

Mahmoud Yadegari, 35, is facing charges under the Customs Act, Export Import Permits Act and the United Nations Act for violating UN sanctions on Iran. Iran insists it is enriching uranium to produce nuclear energy for civilian purposes, but the United States and some European countries accuse Tehran of secretly seeking to build nuclear weapons.

Yadegari, who is a Canadian citizen from Iran, is being held in police custody awaiting a bail hearing in Toronto. Police allege the man took steps to conceal the identification of the transducers so he could export them without required permits.

The charges were made following an eight-week investigation by the RCMP, customs agents, the Department of Foreign Affairs and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, police said. The investigation is ongoing, Johnson said.

Johnson declined to comment on whether Yadegari is believed to be a part of a larger network or if other arrests related to the devices are pending.

 

[lovinmysapper]

I would like to comment on Dr Martin Rudner's presentation, I have been fortunate to study under him this man is amazing... Agreed he has been warning Canadians for some time now!
As he so eloquently puts it " Imagine this a 20 yr business plan,with extremely intelligent officials in charge" "Doctors, Lawyers MBA's Scientists"..."Imagine board rooms occupied with officials conducting audits and PER's" "This is a well organized, exercised business operation  or another word we are familiar with "Terrorists"

When you look at his presentation take note to the success of every operation that has been conducted in the business plan! they even have Business Continuity Plans !!!!!


THEY WALK AMONG US!!!! enough said!!!

 

[leroi]

I would like to comment on Dr Martin Rudner's presentation, I have been fortunate to study under him this man is amazing... Agreed he has been warning Canadians for some time now!
As he so eloquently puts it " Imagine this a 20 yr business plan,with extremely intelligent officials in charge" "Doctors, Lawyers MBA's Scientists"..."Imagine board rooms occupied with officials conducting audits and PER's" "This is a well organized, exercised business operation  or another word we are familiar with "Terrorists"

When you look at his presentation take note to the success of every operation that has been conducted in the business plan! they even have Business Continuity Plans !!!!!


THEY WALK AMONG US!!!! enough said!!!

Lovinmysapper,

You are fortunate to have studied under him.  I don't move in military circles and live in a world, for the main part, that absolutely doesn't believe Canada has any internal threats!

Yes, THEY WALK AMONG US ... one of the Toronto 18's (Toronto 11 now?) camps was a 20 minute car ride from where I live.

 

[George Wallace]

Yet another Islamic university student here in Canada, the former VP of the Canadian Arab Federation, mouthing off about Canada and its policies.  If you follow his logic on Native Rights, you wonder how he can overlook the obvious in his argument and stay in Canada.

Reproduced under the Fair Dealings provisions of the Copyright Act:

Canada a 'genocidal state': former Arab federation VP

By Mary Vallis, National PostJuly 3, 2009

TORONTO — A former vice-president of the Canadian Arab Federation is not backing down after posting "F— Canada Day" on his personal Facebook page.

Omar Shaban, a university student in his early twenties, resigned from the CAF's executive Wednesday after his comments, which also referred to Canada as a "genocidal state," provoked an online backlash. Rather than apologize for his remarks, however, he published an extensive blog post on Thursday defending them.

"I regret the dark history this country has," he wrote. "We are only lying to ourselves if we deny the dark past that Canada was founded on. Canada Day is seen as tragic by its true indigenous population. When Canada Day is celebrated for true freedom and not mourned by the indigenous population of Canada for its colonial and dark past, I will gladly show them my support."

Earlier this week, Shaban posted on Facebook that he "couldn't be more ashamed to be Canadian."

He also wrote, "Might as well kill more natives . . . as a token of support for this genocidal state."

As opposition swelled on Canada Day, the CAF released a statement distancing the organization from Shaban, saying it "is proud of its Canadian identity and heritage" and the comments "in no way reflect of CAF nor its feelings towards Canada."

Mohamed Boudjenane, the CAF's executive director, referred to Shaban's comments as a "stupid faux pas."

"He made a stupid mistake we don't agree with, he resigned and the board accepted his resignation," Boudjenane said. "Omar Shaban is a young activist. . . . Obviously, he holds certain views in respect to first nations' rights and he expressed them on Facebook. That has nothing to do with CAF as an organization, but they will be used against us. We're not surprised."

Shaban's online commentary came at a particularly bad time for the CAF, an umbrella organization that represents 40 Arab groups.

In April, the group lost nearly $2 million in federal funding after its president referred to Jason Kenney, the immigration minister, as a "professional whore" for his support of Israel.

In his blog post, Shaban fired back at the CAF's characterization of his departure.

"I resigned from CAF because I do not want to be part of an organization that openly refuses to acknowledge Canada's colonial and shameful history," he wrote.

======================================================

What a frackin idiot.  What are universities producing?

 

[George Wallace]

This guy really lowers the IQ of his peers:

Mary Vallis, National Post 
Published: Thursday, July 02, 2009

According to the CAF's website, Mr. Shaban, 22, was born in Canada and raised in Lebanon. He is a third year international relations student at the University of British Columbia.

 

[lovinmysapper]

WOW.... and he is now a Canadian??? we can now refer back to the original title of this
"They Walk Among Us"
Please someone tell me why people walk around thinking that we are safe???? after all this is Canada...Peace keeping country....
sorry a little rant there! 

"They Walk Among Us" Enough Said!!!!!

 

[Gunnar]

Earlier this week, Shaban posted on Facebook that he "couldn't be more ashamed to be Canadian."

There's a simple expedient for that, if you have the guts.

 

[Eye In The Sky]

I'd like to blame this d**chead for his comments, but I can't fail to see that, as a society, a country, we the citizens allow this kind of crap to go on.  Maybe not *you* or *me*, but collectively we are failing ourselves, with our "everything must be PC" ways.

I am getting tired of reading or hearing about XYZ-Canadian groups.  You are Canadian, or you are not, to me.  My ancestors came from Scotland and Ireland;  I've never heard my father refer to himself as a Scottish-Canadian, and be part of a group that gets federal funding (aka taxpayers money, which is partly MY money) and then ridicules the very country they live in and our Canadian ways.

Perhaps Omar Shaban (I refuse to put a Mr. in front of that) would be happier living in some other country.  I, for one, would chip in on his bloody plane ticket. 

 

[FastEddy]

Perhaps Omar Shaban (I refuse to put a Mr. in front of that) would be happier living in some other country.  I, for one, would chip in on his bloody plane ticket.

That my Friend is one of the Great Mysteries of Life, why all these persons figure there is so much wrong here and someother place is so much better, why are they still here ?.

But as you so eloquently put, we are getting exactly what we tolerate and justly deserve. And I am sad to say, it gonna get a lot worse !.

Cheers.

 

[Eye In The Sky]

(chuckling)  gee, doesn't THAT news perk me up! 

 

[leroi]

A followup on Hassan Diab who, it appears, has been fired from Carleton University for his connection to terrorism:

Carleton Professors Call for Reinstatement of Colleague Accused of Bombing Paris Synagogue


The Ottawa Citizen (Reproduced in Accordance with the Fair Dealing Provision of the Copyright Act.)
August 1, 2009
Joanne Laucius

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/Carleton+professors+call+reinstatement+colleague+accused+bombing+Paris+synagogue/1850749/story.html


Sociology and anthropology professors are demanding that Carleton University reinstate accused terrorist and fellow lecturer Hassan Diab. “The senior administration has a chance to do the right thing. It’s never too late,” said Peter Gose, chairman of the department at the university.

The Lebanese-born Diab, who is now a Canadian citizen, is accused in France of killing four people and injuring dozens more in the 1980 bombing of a Paris synagogue. He faces an extradition hearing in January and is under virtual house arrest, but may leave to work. Diab was teaching a summer course this week when he learned he was terminated.

Gose said university president Roseann Runte had asked for a meeting with the department on Thursday afternoon, two days after Diab was fired. Of the 42 academics permanently employed in the department, 22 showed up for the meeting, including Diab’s common-law wife, Rania Tfaily. But Runte did not appear.

The professors then drafted the resolution, which said the university ignored its own procedures by terminating Diab, unanimously called for his reinstatement and supported Gose and John Osborne, the dean of the department of arts and social science, for assigning teaching duties to Diab.

“We have to say that our relationship is in bad shape,” said Gose. “The department is solidly behind the idea that he should not have been dismissed.” Gose said he also takes issue with the way the course Diab was teaching was assigned to another faculty member without consultation. “That’s not the way it’s supposed to be done. It’s supposed to be done by the department. It’s an area of the university we manage,” said Gose.

Diab must wear an electronic monitoring bracelet, report regularly to the RCMP and can’t own a cellphone. Under his bail conditions, Diab must live with Tfaily in her Ottawa home. He may leave for work and legal and medical appointments, but only if accompanied by Tfaily or one of the four other people who put up $250,000 in combined bail, including Gose. “The judge said he was not an immediate threat to anyone,” said Gose.

Hiring sessional lecturers is subject to elaborate seniority rules under the collective agreement, Gose said. Diab, who has taught about five previous courses in the department, was at the top of the list in terms of suitability and availability to work. Gose said hiring Diab was cleared by Osborne, as well as the associate director of human resources and Carleton’s provost and vice-president academic, Peter Ricketts.

The department’s reaction to the termination of Diab’s teaching contract is the latest chapter of an episode that began Monday when a court proceeding heard that Diab had been hired to teach during the summer. He was fired Tuesday in the wake of criticism, including a statement by the Jewish advocacy group B’nai Brith.

On Wednesday, the Canadian Association of University Teachers, which represents 65,000 academics across the country, said the university had bowed to pressure from outside the university. Gose said that when Runte called for a department meeting, professors were expecting an explanation of administration’s actions.

In a statement on Friday, Carleton spokeswoman Lin Moody said Runte’s meeting with the department was cancelled after the administration received a grievance from Diab’s union, CUPE 4600. “Because the decision is being grieved we will allow the grievance process to unfold as it should and won’t be making any further comments.”

Gose said that although it was not against the collective agreement for senior administration to fail to notify him and the dean about terminating a lecturer, the normal procedure would be to consult them.“We have to get back to the situation where we respect the collective agreement and the rule of law. And the presumption of innocence,” he said. “It’s not about anyone’s politics. It’s about procedure and it’s about respect.”

Gose said he believes administrators are being pressured by organized lobbyists. “They’re on the fifth floor of the Tory building being bombarded by e-mails and not talking to the professoriate or the students,” he said. “We have a large Muslim student population. There are more people to talk to beyond B’nai Brith. We’re a complex multicultural society.”

Gose sees this week’s events as a “continuity” of Israeli anti-apartheid week last February, when a poster depicting an Israeli helicopter bombing a Palestinian child holding a teddy bear was banned from campus, sparking debate about freedom of expression. Frank Dimant, executive vice-president of B’nai Brith Canada, cites the events of the last week at Carleton as indicative of the mood on Canadian campuses. Dimant said he is fighting an uphill battle against a coalition of neo-Nazis, left-wingers and academics.

“It’s appalling university professors would lobby for the reinstatement of a professor who is alleged to have bombed a synagogue. And one asks this question: is it because a synagogue was bombed?” he said. “Can a rational Canadian citizen agree with the notion that their child is taught by a man who is charged with terrorist crimes?”

He added that the B’nai Brith statement was released to the public domain and the organization did not contact the university to press its case. “We will get the Canadian people to be the lobby group that influences the university.”

 

[gaspasser]

One word: deportation.
Born elsewhere, emigrate to here, bash this country to your base beliefs, and not expect backlash?
I am a proud Canadian, born in the UK of Scottish and (I just found out) Irish ancestry.  As do most of us all.
I am proud to serve my country that took my family in (we immigrated in '69)
People like these make me sick as I wonder at what point to any of us go from being proud and patriotic to racists?  I guess that all depends on your point of view! 
I can guarantee, that if I had done anything terroristic (is that a word) in this country, my butt would be back in the UK!  But then again, I'm a white anglo-saxon protestest who speaks english. 



Sorry.  Too much?
I AM 

 

[leroi]

One word: deportation.
Born elsewhere, emigrate to here, bash this country to your base beliefs, and not expect backlash?
I am a proud Canadian, born in the UK of Scottish and (I just found out) Irish ancestry.  As do most of us all.
I am proud to serve my country that took my family in (we immigrated in '69)
People like these make me sick as I wonder at what point to any of us go from being proud and patriotic to racists?  I guess that all depends on your point of view! 
I can guarantee, that if I had done anything terroristic (is that a word) in this country, my butt would be back in the UK!  But then again, I'm a white anglo-saxon protestest who speaks english. 



Sorry.  Too much?  Not at all.
I AM   Me too! :nod:

I'm glad and surprised Carleton U is taking a stand. From what I've observed, universities are often too hesitant to take decisions that have political implications.

 

[Edward Campbell]

This report, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail, says that the one convicted terrorist would rather not go to jail:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/terrorist-makes-plea-for-clemency/article1263637/

Terrorist makes plea for clemency

“I am not a lunatic hell-bent on destruction” of the West, young man tells court today in Brampton, Ont.


Colin Freeze

Brampton, Ont. — Globe and Mail Update Last updated on Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2009 11:22AM EDT

A convicted Canadian terrorist made a plea for clemency in a Brampton, Ont., court today, urging a judge to forgive his “unspeakable” involvement in a plot to bomb government targets in downtown Toronto.

“Everyone makes mistakes ... The reason we fall down is so we can learn to get up again,” said Saad Khalid, now 22, reading a judge a statement he prepared for his sentencing hearing.

The young man added he wanted the court to know “I am not a lunatic hell-bent on destruction” of the West. “I never wanted to hurt anybody," he said, adding he was glad the plot was foiled in a police sting.

These are the first remarks by any of the accused bomb plotters, who were arrested three years ago, in terms of openly speaking about culpability and the true motivations behind the plot.

In May, Mr. Khalid became the first suspect to plead guilty to a bomb plot in the so-called 2006 “Toronto 18” conspiracy. The group was allegedly a tight-knit splinter cell from within a larger group of Muslim youth that ran and attended a makeshift winter training camp months earlier. Prosecutors say the motivating principle was armed jihad, as the radical young men understood it, and their hope was to force a withdrawal of Canadian troops from Afghanistan.

To that end a few ringleaders, who cannot be named by court order, allegedly sought to acquire U-haul trucks and tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertilizer to bomb the Toronto Stock Exchange, the Toronto headquarters of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, and an unspecified military base.

Mr. Khalid was not privy to the specific details of the plot, but he was caught in a sting boxing fertilizer at the behest of the alleged mastermind.

“I'd like to start by first accepting responsibility for my role,” Mr. Khalid said. “I was not motivated by hate for Canada and Canadians.”

He did say he hated Canada's foreign policy, particularly NATO's participation in the Afghanistan conflict.

Mr. Khalid said he renounces violence and has a better understanding of Islam, but “I still have strong political views shared by other Muslim youth.”

He suggested he could counsel them toward more peaceful protest if freed. “I need a second chance and I do not think keeping me in jail would be good for society or me,” he said.

Sentencing arguments continue today ahead of a planned ruling next month. Mr. Khalid is the second member of the Toronto 18 to be found guilty, with a youth last year convicted of participating in the training camp.

Nine additional suspects have yet to face trial.

I hope he gets a stiff, exemplary, sentence. A lot of people dislike, even “hate” our foreign policy, many are vehemently opposed to our mission in Afghanistan – one of them (those opposed to the Afghan mission) is a friend of mine. Those people – almost all the ones who are opposed to Canada being in Afghanistan – did not decide to build bombs and kill Canadians. This guy, and his friends, did, and they should pay a high price for that bad decision.

 

[Eye In The Sky]

Ref the last line of the above quote:

I disagree you little POS;  keeping you in jail is exactly what would be good for society.

As for what is good for you?  *yawn* I've no interest in that.

 

[FastEddy]

[quote
[/quote]

If anybody believes that crap, please contact me immediately, as I can get you a good deal on the Brooklyn Bridge or your own Ice Berg.

Throw the Book at him, make a example of him, that Canada has a "Zero" policy with any act or form of Terrorism.

Cheers.

 

[Smity199]

Make an example of him and send him to his beloved afghanistan, I as a tax payer would much prefer the cost of a one-way ticket rather than sending this punk to our prison system on our dime..

 

[Kat Stevens]

Make an example of him and send him to his beloved afghanistan, I as a tax payer would much prefer the cost of a one-way ticket rather than sending this punk to our prison system on our dime..

So he can master his trade?  I'd rather see him in a deep dark hole right here in Canada, until he's too old and leathered to pick up a bag of fertilizer.