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Toronto 18 terror suspects

Suspected terrorist makes mockery of Canadian justice

A suspected terrorist, rearrested for reasons unknown at the Brampton courthouse yesterday, took a hike from his trial, simply saying over his shoulder:  “I’m outta here”.

Even with news reports saying that the 20-year-old Islamic convert had tried to walk out of the mostly empty courtroom, his lawyer was denying the accuracy of the event.

“It was not immediately clear why the young man was arrested during the court hearing.  Neither his lawyer, Mitchell Chernovsky, nor a spokesman for the government would comment in great detail about the day’s event.” (thestar.com, May 7, 2008).  “When asked about reports that the accused had fired him as his defence lawyer, Chernovsky said he was “unable to comment”.

Canadian justice thus far seems unable to deal with the original so-called `Group of Toronto 18’, of which the youth is one.  Group members, arrested in 2006 for allegedly plotting to blow up parliament and behead the Canadian Prime Minister is now a watered down `Group of 11’.  Seven have since had their charges stayed.  Included in the stayed charges are those of Qayyum Abdul Jamal, portrayed as the ringleader of the June 2, 2006 plot.

While Chernovsky and Dan Brien of the Public Prosecution Service of Canada remain mum on information, Toronto 18, a webpage dedicated to 18 local Torontonians who have been arrested and charged, had posted the fate of the youth’s day in court by last night.

Supporters of the suspected terrorists plan an End Solitary Confinement Rally/Vigil on May 14.

The rally is being touted as “A Day-long Vigil to end a common Canadian form of Torture and Release Three Young Men from two Years of Enforced Isolation.”

The Toronto 18 webpage includes an April 23, 2008 account of Yasin Mohamed in an exclusive Maclean’s story by Michael Friscolanti, called The Terrorist Who Wasn’t.

There has been more drama from the courtroom regarding the suspected terrorists than there was after the first day of what Friscolanti called their “shocking” arrests.

Lawyers for the 11 remaining accused are making a variety of legal challenges to the charges against their client, including jail beatings.

In a series of raids on June 2, 2006, police arrested 12 adults and five “young offenders”.  In the process of Canada’s largest sting operation, they seized enough ammonium nitrate fertilizer to build an explosive device—three times more devastating than the one used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

“This group presented a real and serious threat.  They had the capacity and intent to carry out a terrorist attack,” RCMP Assistant Commissioner Mike McDonnell, said at the time.  “Our investigation and arrests prevented the assembly of explosive devices and attacks being carried out.  At all times, the focus of our investigation was the safety and protection of the public.”

Since that time, much has been made by the media of the RCMP having paid a civilian more than $4 million to help execute the sting operation that brought down the group of alleged terrorists in Toronto.

The drama that unfolded in Brampton court yesterday followed by a single day a report from Auditor-General Sheila Fraser indicating that the federal government has lost track of 41.000 illegal immigrants who should be deported. 

Highlights of her report include that “the Canada Border Services Agency does not collect enough data to “properly manage detentions and removals”.  As a result, the agency has lost track of 41,000 people who had been ordered to leave Canada, although some may have already left, the report said.

“The agency does not monitor its detention and removal decisions across the country to ensure they are consistent,” Fraser said.
She said many of those missing deportees are failed refugee claimants.

In 1998 the director of CSIS told a special committee of the Canadian Parliament that members of more than 50 international terrorist groups were living there.  “With perhaps the singular exception of the United States, there are more international terrorist groups active here than in any other country,” testified CSIS Director Ward Elcock.  “Terrorist groups are present here whose origins lie in virtually every significant regional, ethnic and nationalist conflict there is.”

The CSIS elaborated in 1999: “For a number of reasons, Canada is an attractive venue for terrorists.  Long borders and coastlines offer many points of entry which can facilitate movement to and from various sites around the world, particularly the United States.”

Montreal has a reputation for being a rest-over point for terrorists. “Radical Muslim operatives go to ground in Montreal.  They rest and recruit in Montreal and get their recreation here,” Beryl Wajsman, Canada Free Press columnist and Montreal resident reported on July 10, 2006.

Meanwhile, no wonder why suspected terrorists in the young offender category, can thumb their noses at feeble Canadian justice.