Trial begins for youth charged in alleged Toronto bomb plot

RackMaster

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It's about time. I hope these fuckers get thrown to the wolves. :D

Trial begins for youth charged in alleged Toronto bomb plot

Last Updated: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 | 8:13 PM ET Comments1Recommend1

CBC News


The trial of one of 15 suspects charged in the alleged Toronto bomb plot of 2006 began Tuesday in a courtroom in Brampton, Ont.
The Crown previewed the evidence it plans to present — calling it "shocking and sensational" — and requested a publication ban on evidence that could prejudice the right to a fair trial for his alleged co-conspirators.
The accused, who was 18 at the time of his arrest and cannot be named under the terms of the Youth Criminal Justice Act, pleaded not guilty.
He is charged with participating in and contributing to the activity of a terrorist group.
Crown prosecutors said they will present evidence that proves he attended a training camp where he participated in military exercises and firearms training.
The Crown asked for a partial publication ban to prevent the media from linking evidence at the trial to the identities of other suspects.
Crown attorney Marco Mendicino said the evidence to be presented in court is "palpably prejudicial" and could destroy any chances of the other suspects getting a fair trial when their cases go to court.
The judge did not immediately rule on the application, but put an interim ban in place that prevents the publication of names or other identifying information of other suspects in connection with accusations heard in court.
Neither the interim ban nor the ban sought by the Crown block the media from reporting evidence presented during the trial.
Fourteen adult males and one youth face a number charges stemming from allegations they were involved in militia-style training north of Toronto, as well as plotting to blow up hydro installations and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation buildings in downtown Toronto.
In total, 17 suspects were arrested in a series of police raids in and around Toronto in June 2006, with one additional man picked up in a police operation two months later. Charges against three of the accused were later stayed.
Although the trial officially began Tuesday, the first witnesses are not expected to be called until May 27. Before then, defence lawyers will launch two constitutional challenges regarding the charges that were originally laid and wire taps that were used to gather evidence.
 
Update

I'll keep an eye on the story and update as info is released.

Crown documents give chilling details of alleged Toronto bomb plot

'Rome has to be defeated,' accused allegedly told group

Last Updated: Wednesday, March 26, 2008 | 4:05 PM ET Comments27Recommend116

CBC News


Newly-released court documents reveal the sheer scale of the alleged Toronto-area terror plot in 2006, including transcripts of the accused allegedly hoping their attacks would far exceed the London subway bombings a year earlier.
The documents were obtained by various media organizations, including the CBC, late Tuesday at the beginning of the first trial of one of the accused. The Crown has asked for a partial publication ban that would prevent the media from linking evidence to any of the other suspects by name.
An alleged quote from a wiretap demonstrates what the Crown calls a "chilling indifference" to the deaths that would result from a bomb placed on Toronto's Front Street.
"They're probably expecting what happened in London or something — some bombing in a subway — kills 10 people and everybody gets deported," one of the 15 accused is alleged to have told another. "We're not doing that … So our thing it's, it's much, much greater on a scale … You do it once and you make sure they can never recover again."
The London suicide bomb attacks on July 7, 2005, killed 56 people, including the four bombers, and injured more than 700 others on three subway cars and a bus.
The review of the Crown's evidence shows the astounding level of police penetration of the group through wiretaps and video recordings of their alleged training sessions and phone calls.
"Whether we get arrested, whether we get killed, we get tortured, our mission's greater than just individuals," the accused is alleged to have told others in a videotape of an alleged training session near Timmins, Ont.
"Rome has to be defeated and we have to be the ones that do it."
The accused are alleged to have trained and planned for a series of bombings and other attacks, including the capture and potential beheading of Prime Minister Stephen Harper if he did not pull Canadian troops out of Afghanistan and release Muslim prisoners.
Members of the group, accused by authorities of being inspired by al-Qaeda, allegedly tried to obtain three tons of ammonium nitrate — an explosive material commonly used in fertilizer.
'We go and kill everybody'

The documents include another wiretap transcript of a suspect allegedly detailing a plan to attack politicians on Parliament Hill, during which both Harper and former prime minister Paul Martin are mentioned.
"What happens, what happens at the Parliament?" one person is heard asking.
"We go and kill everybody," another says.
"And then what?"
"And then read about it … We get victory."
"And take, uh, Paul, um, what's his name ____. Paul loser."
"Paul Martin."
"Yeah."
"Nah, I wish he had won, guy."
"What you, what you talking about?"
"Now it's the other guy, Harper."
The first accused, who was 18 at the time of his arrest but was the only defendant charged under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, was arraigned and pleaded not guilty to participating in terrorist activity.
Crown prosecutors said they will present evidence that proves he attended a training camp where he participated in military exercises and firearms training.
Eighteen suspects were originally charged, but three have had their charges stayed.
None of the evidence detailed in the Crown review has been tested in court.
Documents only 'best case scenario': defence

Crown attorney Marco Mendicino said Tuesday the evidence to be entered in court is "palpably prejudicial" and could destroy any chances of the other suspects getting a fair trial when their cases go to court.
Paul Slansky, defence lawyer for one of the accused, argued that the documents should not be released to the public because they only represented the Crown's "best-case scenario" version of events.
The judge did not immediately rule on the Crown's application for a publication ban, but put in place an interim ban preventing names or other specific identifying information from being published regarding any accusations heard in court.
But lawyer Paul Schabas, who represented several media outlets, said there should be no publication ban in place at all because the public has a right to know what's going on inside the courtroom, which citizens are allowed to enter.
"This court must do whatever it can … to find a way to argue this as much as possible in public," he said.
Although the trial officially began Tuesday, the first witnesses are not expected to be called until May 27.
Before then, defence lawyers will launch two constitutional challenges regarding the charges that were originally laid and wire taps that were used to gather evidence.

Defence in Toronto bomb plot case counters claims of terror training

Last Updated: Wednesday, March 26, 2008 | 8:58 PM ET Comments1Recommend0

CBC News


A defence lawyer in the alleged Toronto-area bomb plot case filed a court document Wednesday attacking the Crown's case as fanciful and based largely on the unsubstantiated allegations of an unreliable police informant.
The defence factum, a summary of the case that lawyers will argue during the trial, takes on some of the more dramatic allegations made in Crown documents submitted on Tuesday.
The factum was filed on behalf of one of the adult accused whose case has yet to go to trial.
The trial began this week of another defendant, who was 18 at the time of his arrest and cannot be named under the terms of the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
The factum says the defence lawyer will show that a so-called "jihadist" training camp run by some of the accused was nothing more than a screening exercise for possible recruits to Islamic militancy, and few of the participants in training at the camp — near the southern Ontario town of Orillia — knew what they were involved in.
Two of the other defendants who have yet to go on trial ran the camp, the factum says, and concealed its purpose from other participants. Trainees took part in winter camping activities but were so ill-equipped for the cold weather that they spent much of their time in a nearby Tim Hortons coffee shop.
Informant brought bullets: lawyer

The document acknowledges that some firearms training took place, but it alleges that the only person to bring live ammunition to the camp was a police informant. That same informant was the person who actually conducted the gun exercises, the factum says.
In addition, the document alleges that the only source of information about what was happening at the Orillia camp was the police informant. There was no "real time" police surveillance, it says.
Responding to transcripts of audio tapes of a police wiretap that the Crown claims were "damning and disturbing" proof of a militant Islamist bomb plot, the factum filed Wednesday said the defendant was not present at the time that other accused were talking about attacking Parliament and the headquarters of CSIS and the CBC.
The factum concludes with an argument against the Crown's request for a publication ban on the names of the defendants, or any evidence that might help identify them.
The document says police and government officials have already taken part in "orgiastic and self congratulatory press gathering … during which evermore private details and 'investigative gossip' were revealed to inflame and misinform the public."
No witnesses until May

"Restricting the publication of evidence at a trial is the sharp edge of a slippery slope," the factum states, "which … results in 'Star Chamber' or military commission [-style] trials where the public's right to know is supplanted by the government desire to withhold."
The document says the defendant would suffer unduly from a publication ban because he wouldn't be disassociated from some of the worst allegations being made in the case.
In all, 18 suspects were originally charged with offences related to supporting terrorism, but three have had charges against them stayed.
None of the evidence detailed in the Crown review has been tested in court.
Although the trial officially began Tuesday, the first witnesses are not expected to be called until May 27.
 
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