A judge was to decide yesterday the guilt or innocence of a Canadian man accused of participating in a plot to bomb British targets in 2004.
Momin Khawaja, a Pakistani-born Canadian citizen, is accused of collaborating with British Muslims, also of Pakistani descent, in a thwarted plan to bomb British buildings and natural gas lines. Five alleged co-conspirators were convicted in London last year and jailed for life.
Justice Douglas Rutherford was to issue his verdict yesterday morning in a trial that started in June. Legal disputes and constitutional challenges delayed the trial for years.
Khawaja was the first person to be charged of a terrorist offense in Canada since the country enacted anti-terrorism laws in 2001 and his case is considered the first major test of those laws.
Khawaja, 29, pleaded not guilty to all charges alleging his involvement in a plot to attack London’s Ministry of Sound nightclub, a shopping center and electrical and gas facilities in Britain. Prosecutors painted Khawaja as an extremist who, along with co-conspirators in Britain, was determined to sow havoc.
Defense lawyer Lawrence Greenspon has acknowledged that Khawaja, an Ottawa software developer, created a remote-control device for setting off explosives. But he insisted it was meant for use against military targets in Afghanistan — not for a homemade fertilizer bomb being constructed by the plotters in London. He says the plotters never let Khawaja in on their plans to mount attacks in Britain.
Greenspon did not call Khawaja or anyone else to testify.
The prosecution’s star witness, Mohammed Babar, a former al-Qaeda operative turned police informant, testified that Khawaja attended a training camp in Pakistan in 2003. He also claimed Khawaja acted as a courier to deliver money and supplies and discussed various potential operations.
Khawaja faces seven charges under Canada’s Anti-Terrorism Act, including the allegation that he built the remote-control device to trigger explosions. He is also accused of financing and facilitating terrorism, participating in terrorist training and meetings, and making a house owned by his family in Pakistan available for terrorist use.
The charges carry a maximum penalty of life in prison.
Wesley Wark, a University of Toronto professor and national-security expert, said Greenspon essentially indicated Khawaja’s guilt on the charges that had to do with possession and utilization of an explosive device.
Wark said Canada has tough anti-terrorism laws that allow for a conviction even if an accused person did not fully know the details of the conspiracy.
“It actually doesn’t require a full knowledge of a terrorism plot,” Wark said.
Canada’s anti-terror law was ushered in following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the US.
The law was used two years ago to charge 18 individuals in an unrelated alleged conspiracy to bomb targets in Toronto. But most of those cases are still before the courts.
The first suspect to go to trial in that case was found guilty last month of participating in military exercises and firearms training. The man — who wasn’t among the ringleaders — was the first person to be found guilty of a terrorist offense in Canada since the country enacted the anti-terrorism laws in 2001.
The arrests of the 18 group members, known as the “Toronto 18,” made headlines around the world and heightened fears in Canada, where people believe they are relatively immune from terrorist strikes.
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