Mounties uncover 'Al Qaeda' cache
Plans, tapes diaries seized at Pearson
Zaynab Khadr denies they belong to her
MICHELLE SHEPHARD
STAFF REPORTER
OTTAWAâ â€The RCMP and Canadian military believe they've discovered a vital cache of information on Al Qaeda that includes the whereabouts of wanted members and details of attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan.
The information is allegedly contained in a laptop, dozens of DVDs, audiocassettes and the pages of diaries, seized by the RCMP officers who met Zaynab Khadr at Pearson airport with a search warrant as she arrived back in Canada in February, court documents state.
Khadr is the eldest daughter of a family that has admitted close ties to Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and whose patriarch was once believed to be the highest-ranking Canadian member of Al Qaeda. Her younger brother, Omar, is currently Canada's only known detainee in the American camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
With the three-month time limit allotted to the federal police force to hold the items having now expired, the RCMP must go to a Toronto court this Friday to persuade a judge to allow them to continue doing a forensic evaluation of the seized materials. But Khadr's lawyer Dennis Edney says the Mounties are on nothing more than a "fishing expedition," and will argue that Khadr is entitled to her possessions.
Khadr, 25, said in an interview yesterday that anything found on the laptop, except personal pictures and a few "cartoons" that she downloaded, are not hers. She says she bought her laptop second-hand about seven months before coming to Canada. The audiocassettes, described in court documents as providing "significant information regarding `after-battle action reports' of Al Qaeda and Taliban insurgents" involved in attacking coalition forces in Afghanistan, were found among her father's possessions after he was killed in 2003, Khadr said.
"I think it's my right to bring what I want since I'm not breaking any laws, so I decided to bring them," she said. "Although I don't know what's on them, I still thought I'd bring them."
Khadr has not been charged in Canada or Pakistan, where she lived with her young daughter and sister before returning to Scarborough to be with her mother and brothers.
The court documents state there are "still a number of steps" to be taken in the investigation, that cannot be disclosed, but that her written records are being studied by the RCMP's behavioural sciences unit for a "psychological analysis" and to determine if she is a "threat to society."
Among her possessions, the RCMP allege, are downloaded clips of bin Laden's voice and songs â †one titled "I am a Terrorist" â †which contain excerpts from speeches calling for the killing of Americans. There is also allegedly a video clip of a 2003 attack on a compound used by Westerners in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and cassettes about insurgent attacks in Afghanistan. Canada has troops stationed in Afghanistan.
"(T)hey provide insights into the tactics, techniques and procedures by these insurgent groups," the documents allege. "They (also) provide time and place information regarding activities of key Al Qaeda and Taliban personalities who are presently at large and operating against coalition troops."
The seven-page affidavit by RCMP Sgt. Konrad Shourie, filed last month in the Ontario Court of Justice, provides rarely revealed details about the terrorism investigation.
The Khadr family has created its share of controversy. Khadr's father, Egyptian-born and Canadian citizen Ahmed Said Khadr, generated enough public pressure in 1996 to convince prime minister Jean Chrétien to intervene when he was facing charges in Pakistan in connection with the bombing of the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad. He died in a battle in Pakistan in October 2003. After the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks he was put on a list of suspected Al Qaeda terrorists. His family's connections to bin Laden were confirmed three years later with a documentary where his son, Abdurahman, admitted to growing up in an "Al Qaeda family."
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