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Great White North

Police planted evidence: Terrorists’ arrest in Toronto was a sting operation

2006-06-05

The three tonnes of ammonium nitrate found with the Totonto terrorism suspects was planted by the police in an elaborate sting operation. According to Toronto Star, “Sources say investigators who had learned of the group’s alleged plan to build a bomb were controlling the sale and transport of the massive amount of fertiliser, a key component in creating explosives. Once the deal was done, the RCMP-led anti-terrorism task force moved in for the arrests.” At the news conference held by the police, there was no mention of the sting operation. Among the intended targets of the group, one report said, was the Parliament in Ottawa and the headquarters of Canada’s premier spy agency. The 12 adults charged are: Fahim Ahmad, 21; Jahmaal James, 23; Amin Mohamed Durrani, 19; and Steven Vikash Chand, 25, all of Toronto; Zakaria Amara, 20; Asad Ansari, 21; Shareef Abdelhaleen, 30; Ahmad Mustafa Ghany, 21; Saad Khalid, 19; and Qayyum Abdul Jamal, 43, all of Mississauga; and Mohammed Dirie, 22 and Yasin Abdi Mohamed, 24. Six of the 12 suspects lived in the Toronto suburb of Mississauga, four came from Toronto and two from the town of Kingston in Ontario. The last two are already in custody on a gun smuggling charge. The police also arrested five youngsters but their identities or names have not bee made public. At a court hearing in Toronto on Saturday, all the suspects were produced and Canadian newspapers published photographs of head-to-toe, black burqa clad group of women said to belong to the one or more of the families of the men arrested. One whose face was visible looked like a Pakistani. Several of the men, photographed as they were being brought in police cars, were bearded. The charges include participating in or contributing to the activity of a terrorist group, including training and recruitment; providing or making available property for terrorist purposes; and the commission of indictable offences, including firearms and explosives offences for the benefit of or in association with a terrorist group. According to the Toronto Star report, “Anser Farooq, a lawyer who represents five of the accused, pointed at snipers on the roof of the courthouse and said, “This is ridiculous. They’ve got soldiers here with guns. This is going to completely change the atmosphere. I think the police cast their net far too wide,” he said. According to the Globe and Mail, defence lawyer Rocco Galati, who was representing some of the suspects, protested the intense security measures at the court. Galati later scoffed at the allegations. “I’ve seen fertiliser for the last eight years,” he said. Aly Hindy, a Toronto imam, said he knew several of the accused because they prayed at his mosque but said they were not terrorists. “The charges are to keep George Bush happy, that’s all,” he added sardonically. The Globe and Mail did not mention that all incriminating evidence had been planted on the suspects. AP adds: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said there was no indication that the arrested were trying to plan an attack in the United States. “We certainly don’t believe that there’s any link to the United States, but obviously we will follow up,” said Rice. “I think we will get whatever information we need,” she said. “But it’s obviously a great success for the Canadians. They’re to be congratulated for it.”

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Great White North

Khadr the Younger admits training at al-Qaeda related camp

2003-12-02

And just think, he could be in NYC in a day with his passport ... Abdul Rahman Khadr admits learning to use assault weapons at an ”al-Qaeda related” training camp but insisted that such instruction was routine for teens in war-torn Afghanistan. "All the other terrorist leaders’ kids were doing it!" "Just think of it as the Boy Scouts, only with turbans and automatic weapons..." He said that the camp was run by Arabs and that some graduates went on to fight the Northern Alliance and others travelled to foreign wars in Bosnia and Chechnya. The camp was never visited by Osama bin Laden while he was there, he said, and political instruction was not part of the curriculum. Just the whole Wahhabi/Salafist "kill infidels" and "worldwide theocracy" shticks, but those were all taught in religious classes, not political ones. Beyond that you could either go fight the Great Satan directly or join an affiliate group. As far as Binny never visiting, the man has an international terrorist network to run, for God’s sake, you think he stops by every five minutes for tea with the cannon fodder? Mr. Khadr — a Canadian citizen captured in Afghanistan and held by U.S. authorities in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for more than a year — denied Monday that negative conclusions should be drawn from his training at such a camp. You’ll forgive me if I politely disagree with him on this one. He called the time he spent training “a waste of my life” but stressed that it was perfectly normal for youths in Afghanistan to learn to handle weapons. ”Every kid, when he’s around 15, goes to train,” he said. "Otherwise they end up hanging around the malt shoppe and racing their camels up and down the street while they holler at girlies." A few minutes later, badgered by reporters during a press conference in Toronto, he lashed out in exasperation. Guess the Canuck press is doing at least some homework these days ... ”In the beginning, who were [the camps] made by? Americans. Who were they made by? By the West. Because of the war against the Russians in the very beginning, against the communists. It was very normal thing, everybody was supportive of what was happening in the very beginning when it was against communists,” he said. ”... Lots of the people who trained at these camps, they were not al-Qaeda. They [wanted] to come and fight against the Northern Alliance.” Or the Russians or the Indians or the Filippinos or the southern Sudanese or the Algerian junta or the Uzbek dictator, ect. It’s that whole Armed Struggle(TM) thing ... Mr. Khadr, now 20, said that he had been handed over to the Americans by a Northern Alliance commander — who, he said, detained him solely because he was an Arab and might thus be connected to al-Qaeda. After more than one year in the U.S. penal colony in Cuba he was told he would be released. "Herb, I don't think this mutt's got anything left to spill." "Hokay, Bob. Toss him the hell out. Why waste money feeding him?" ”I said I want to go to Canada, they said: ’Well, the Canadians don’t want to take you, so we’re going to take you back to where we captured you.’ ” Flown to Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul, with his ears and eyes covered, he was kept in complete isolation for the first 24 hours after his arrival. Only when his earphones and blindfold were removed, he said, did he realize that he was in Bagram, where he had been before. He said that the Americans handed him over to Afghan intelligence, who eventually released him. One word: Why? With no passport or money, he said he tapped old friends of his father, people who had access to power and influence. Pakistani fundos like Qazi and Saeed or the good brass in VEVAK and the IRGC? He borrowed enough money to be smuggled to Islamabad, where he was turned away by guards at the Canadian embassy, and then on to Istanbul, where he was similarly rejected. It was only in Sarajevo, after his plight had become public, that he was received by Canadian diplomatic officials. Um, okay. That still doesn’t explain what you were doing in Iran ... A reporter tried to suggest that, since it was the security guards and not the embassy officials who had spurned his pleas for help, the Canadian government could not be accused of forsaking him. That line of argument was blasted by Mr. Khadr’s lawyer, Rocco Galati. ”Those security guards are officials, they are the gatekeepers to our embassy,” he said, putting heavy emphasis on the word ’our’. ”I don’t like these nonsense, disingenuous distinctions between the persons at the door and the persons behind the door, if you can’t get behind the door it’s the same thing. Those security guards are Canadian officials.” "I weep for you, the Walrus said... I deeply sympathize..." Mr. Khadr would say very little about his time in Cuba, citing fears that going public about conditions there could jeopardize his younger brother, Omar, who is being held on suspicion of having killed a U.S. military medic. “I think that everybody has a right to be scared right now. Americans can catch you for no reason, put you away, not give you a lawyer, not give you anything,” he said. I think we should be scared right now. Islamists will kill you for no reason. They won't give you a lawyer, either. “My brother is in Cuba, he’s a juvenile, he’s been shot three times, he’s half blind, he has to go to the hospital every two weeks ... and I don’t see Canada doing anything about it.” You’re breaking my heart here, kid ... The younger Mr. Khadr, who turned 17 in September, is now believed to be the only Canadian remaining at Guantanamo Bay. Can we keep him there?

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Great White North

Canadian al-Qaeda suspect denied entry to Canada

2003-11-26

The grandmother of Canadian terrorist suspect Abdul Rahman Khadr, who was released from a U.S. jail at Guantanamo Bay last month, said Tuesday her grandson is not being allowed back into Canada. But Foreign Affairs spokesman Reynald Doiron said Khadr has not been denied a Canadian passport. He said Khadr chose not to return to Canada upon his release. I can sympathize. The winters in Canada are just too damn cold. but I love it! Liberal Leader Paul Martin said Canada would acept Khadr. "Why is the Canadian government just sitting impotent
 to not only defending its citizens
but also getting really nasty and refusing them re-entry when they have a right to re-enter," said the family’s lawyer, Rocco Galati. Khadr, 20, was sent to Afghanistan late last month. He was arrested there as part of a round-up of suspected al-Qaeda members after the fall of the Taliban in November 2001. His brother Omar made headlines for his suspected involvement in the killing of a U.S. medic during a battle in Afghanistan last year. He remains in Guantanamo Bay. U.S. officials say their father, Ahmed Said Khadr, is a fugitive senior member of al-Qaeda. Obviously that makes Sonny just the sort of fellow you want to have knocking around Canada. What's Yellowknife without a few turbans, eh? There are reports that Ahmed Said Khadr and one of his sons died during a raid on an al-Qaeda camp in the border region of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Canadian officials have been unable to confirm those reports. Abdul Rahman Khadr called his grandmother a week ago to say he had been taken from Guantanamo to Afghanistan and left there without money or identification. Identification shouldn’t be problem for him, just visit Pakistan next door! He told her the Canadian consulates in Pakistan and Turkey had refused to help him return to Canada. Galati said Khadr twice asked for assistance and travel documents in Turkey but was denied help. "He’s on the streets, he’s without any money or support. His physical health is not good
 his mental health is obviously very fragile," Galati said. "Guantanamo was better!!" But Doiron denies Khadr was refused help by consular officials, and there’s no record he asked anyone for assistance. "What we can say is Mr. Khadr can return to Canada as his right
 provided of course he would have to step forward and request consular assistance," Dorian said. Doiron said his information indicates Khadr ended up in Afghanistan because that was his choice. Missed his pals I bet. "Suffice to say he was sent to a place that was, let’s say, negotiated between him and the American authorities."

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Great White North

Lawyer begs ex-Cuban detainee to return to Canada

2003-11-25

The lawyer for a Canadian released overseas from an American jail in Cuba begged the young man to repeat his efforts to get back home now that his case has been publicized. "We can’t do a book deal till you come home" With the 20-year-old’s grandmother at his side, Rocco Galati said Canadian officials have so far denied Abdulrahman Khadr his passport and are either "negligent or spinning lies" because they deny knowing Khadr’s whereabouts. When Khadr last contacted his grandmother in Toronto over the weekend from Yugoslavia, he said it would be his last call to her and his last attempt to get back home. He was running out of money, which he borrowed from some friends in Afghanistan, and was scared of being picked up by authorities and jailed again. "He is very frightened," said Fatmah Elsamnah, adding that every time he calls her he says he is in trouble. Ah hah, I’ll bet he’s worried his old pals think he sold them out in order to get out of Gitmo. Our evil plan is working! Galati could not explain how a man with little money and no official documents had travelled from Afghanistan to Pakistan, Turkey and Yugoslavia over the past few weeks. Humm, because he’s got a lot of money and phoney documents? Khadr, whose father and brother were allegedly now dead members of al-Qaida, was not returned immediately to Canada from Cuba because American officials told Khadr he was not wanted here, Galati said. However, Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman Reynald Doiron said Monday that Khadr chose not to return to Canada upon his release and refuted reports that Khadr was being denied a Canadian passport from embassy officials. Since being released from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in late October, Khadr has tried three times at two different consulate offices in Pakistan and Turkey to renew his Canadian passport and get a flight to Toronto, his grandmother and Galati said. He must be the only guy who can’t get a passport in Pakistan. "Canada is acting illegally, unconstitutionally and, arguably, in a criminal fashion," said Galati, who has defended several alleged terrorists following the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States. Mouthpiece for hire "Canada, I hate to say it, does not recognize brown-skinned Muslims," Galati said. And there’s the race card. Ahmed Said Khadr, Abdul’s father, and his oldest son, Abdullah, are both believed to have died in a gun battle in Pakistan. The family that jihads together, dies together. Khadr’s mother and sister were denied Canadian passports to leave Pakistan six months ago, Galati said. So, Grandma is the only one left in Canada. Khadr and his youngest brother, Omar, 17, formerly of Toronto, were among hundreds of suspects held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay. They were captured separately during the war in Afghanistan following the al-Qaida terror attacks. So that’s two dead Khadr’s, one in Gitmo, one on the run, mom and sis are in Pakland, and Grandma sitting in her lawyers office in Toronto wondering "What happened?". It’s a good day.

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