Islamic Terrorism in the West ( Mega thread)

[FastEddy]

So he can master his trade?  I'd rather see him in a deep dark hole right here in Canada, until he's too old and leathered to pick up a bag of fertilizer.

Good point "Kat".

Cheers.

 

[Smity199]

Good point "Kat".

Cheers.

agreed, although corporal punishment would be ideal for cases like this.

 

[FlatTax]

I thought everyone knew that the cylons looked like humans!

 

[Smity199]

Side note: why do they hold their heads back like that whenever a photo is being taken?
hes just asking for someone to kick him in the chin

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Why do we have to explain this everytime one of these threads shows up?

Hold and voice all the opinions you want, as long as they fall within the realm of what's legally accepted by our society and laws.

Keep the vigilante stuff to yourselves.

Milnet.ca Staff

 

[ruckmarch]

I am a proud Canadian, born in the UK of Scottish and (I just found out) Irish ancestry.  But then again, I'm a white anglo-saxon protestest who speaks english. 

You are having a laugh mate, you call that Scottish chinwag English?  :rofl: Scottish and English don't mix, especially when it comes to football  ;D

Bet you think Alex Ferguson is speaking English in the link below?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTZ1v3hjH1M

 

[Danjanou]

You are having a laugh mate, you call that Scottish chinwag English?  :rofl: Scottish and English don't mix, especially when it comes to football  ;D

Bet you think Alex Ferguson is speaking English in the link below?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTZ1v3hjH1M

Careful there ruckmarch. I'm from Scots Irish descent and could see your post as very derogatory and perhaps even racist crack delivered to my ethnic heritage. Very un PC.  8)

 

[ruckmarch]

Careful there ruckmarch. I'm from Scots Irish descent and could see your post as very derogatory and perhaps even racist crack delivered to my ethnic heritage. Very un PC.  8)

I was born and raised in London UK, a lifelong Arsenal fan, hence the football jibe. Racist...? Mate please

BYT gets the joke  ;D

 

[Kirkhill]

I was born and raised in London UK, a lifelong Arsenal fan, hence the football jibe. Racist...? Mate please

BYT gets the joke  ;D

Bleedin' Arsenal.  You want to see tribal violence Danjanou?  Up the Hammers  ;D

Scots-English-Canadian with 5 years in Surrey and a suitably complex dialect.

 

[Kat Stevens]

Bleedin' Arsenal.  You want to see tribal violence Danjanou?  Up the Hammers  ;D

Scots-English-Canadian with 5 years in Surrey and a suitably complex dialect.

Nah, us Hammers save most of our bile for Millwall fans.  West Ham is the only club to ever win a world cup  ;D

 

[ruckmarch]

Gordon Bennett....flippin Hammers fans  : They are always there to take our rejects, Ian Wright, Paul Merson, freddie Lunberg, Hartson...the list goes on and we still manage to beat them all the time.

How is life in the lower league these days? Had many a drink in the Upton Park pub after games, and then we take the fights onto Green Street  ;D

There is only one Arsenal 

 

[dustinm]

To get this thread off of ethnic diversity and hockey, and back on topic (remember we are in "International Situations & World News", not Radio Chatter):

While it might be considered unorthodox, have people convicted of being involved in crimes like these ever been used as consultants?

For instance, while several of the articles listed in these 4 pages are of foiled plots (i.e. plot to import nuclear technology into Iran), the Parisian bombing suspect probably has some useful information that might prevent an attack in the future (though admittedly his might be less useful as its nearly 20+ years old.)

Has Canada ever used their arrested suspects as sources of intelligence on their methods, as opposed to just as sources of information on the attack itself?

 

[mariomike]

Has Canada ever used their arrested suspects as sources of intelligence on their methods, as opposed to just as sources of information on the attack itself?

I think Kurt Meyer and Albert Speer are two examples.

 

[Danjanou]

I was born and raised in London UK, a lifelong Arsenal fan, hence the football jibe. Racist...? Mate please

BYT gets the joke  ;D

My aren't we a tad sensitive and defensive lad when someone questions your PCness on here.  8)

Anyway back to the topic at hand, mario I think you'd be stretching it a bit with Panzer Meyer there.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail, is a report on the sentencing of Saad Khalid:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/toronto-18-member-handed-14-year-sentence/article1274654/

'Toronto 18' member handed 14-year sentence
Thursday's sentencing of confessed terrorist marks first time that any core member of the alleged 'Toronto 18' bomb conspiracy sent to prison

Colin Freeze

Brampton, Ont.
Thursday, Sep. 03, 2009

A terrorist bomb-plotter has received a 14-year sentence for his role in a scheme to blow up government targets in downtown Toronto.

Saad Khalid, 23, who pleaded guilty in the so-called Toronto 18 conspiracy, was credited with seven years for time in pretrial custody. He will spend a maximum of seven more years in prison. He can apply for parole in two years four months.

Thursday's ruling may bode ill for accused in the case who have yet to face trial. Mr. Justice Bruce Durno said that even taking into account many mitigating factors – Mr. Khalid's youth, sincere regret, guilty plea and non-central role – Canadian courts have an obligation to punish terrorism harshly.

“ To be even a bit player in a serious and significant plan is a serious and significant infraction ”— Russell Silverstein, Saad Khalid's lawyer

“Canadian society relies on ballots and not bullets or bombs to change policy,” Judge Durno said in a 48-page decision he read aloud in court.

“ … Terrorist offences are the most vile form of criminal conduct.”

Mr. Khalid was close shaven Thursday and wore a black blazer, a tie and jeans to the courtroom, which was packed with his family, journalists, counterterrorism operatives, government lawyers and at least one police agent.

The young man buried his head in his hands after hearing his sentence, but his lawyer later said his client was actually pleased.

“He's perfectly happy,” Russell Silverstein said outside court. “ ... It could have been a lot worse.”

“To be even a bit player in a serious and significant plan is a serious and significant infraction,” he added.

Statement of facts in Khalid case

The Crown's blow-by-blow of the Toronto 18 plot, laid out in a statement of uncontested facts filed this summer in the case of R. v. Saad Khalid, solely for the purpose of his trial

On June 2, 2006, Mr. Khalid was caught in a police sting. Hundreds of police swept across Toronto to round up more than a dozen Muslim youth. Mr. Khalid was caught unloading boxes marked “ammonium nitrate” from the back of a truck.

He admitted he knew the fertilizer was intended to be used to construct truck bombs to be detonated in the downtown core. He pleaded guilty in May.

The Crown alleges that only two suspects were privy to the full details of the bomb plot, and that their targets were the Toronto Stock Exchange, the Toronto headquarters of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and an unspecified military base along Highway 401.

“Saad Khalid was not the prime mover in the plot,” Judge Durno said, describing the young man as an accomplice kept ignorant of the fine points. Even so, the accused “knew serious bodily harm or death were likely” and “was not just a gopher” who unloaded fertilizer.

Mr. Khalid not only knew the gist of a overarching bomb plot but also bought electrical equipment, rented storage units, and even recruited an accomplice.

“I acknowledge that I made a huge mistake, and not a day passes by that I am not filled with regret for my role in this despicable crime,” Mr. Khalid told the court during a sentencing hearing last week.

He described himself as university student from a good home, but said he fell in with more radical Muslims because of a “disagreement on the issue of Canadian foreign policy, specifically Canada's involvement in Afghanistan.”

Mr. Khalid's Pakistani family raised him in Saudi Arabia, then moved Canada. The death of Mr. Khalid's mother when he was 15 left him “vulnerable” to terrorist recruiters, the judge said. He was a teenager at the time of his arrest.

Mr. Khalid spent three years in jail, some of it in segregation, before deciding to plead guilty.

Judge Durno accepted Mr. Khalid's remorse, but only to a point.

He agreed the young man had truly changed in prison, and that he likely would pose no threat to society upon release.

Still, terrorist crimes need to be punished severely as “they attack the very fabric of Canada's democratic ideals,” Judge Durno ruled.

Only a handful of cases have been prosecuted under Canada's Anti-Terrorism Act, a controversial piece of legislation passed by Parliament in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.

One of Mr. Khalid's co-accused, a teenager who was a peripheral member of the group, has already been found guilty of participating in a terrorist group through attending a training camp.

Charges against six of the original Toronto 18 suspects were stayed. Cases involving Mr. Khalid's nine co-accused are expected to start by the beginning of next year.

Publication bans shield the identities of the co-accused.

A 37-page statement of the Crown's case, uncontested by Mr. Khalid, is posted on globeandmail.com in an edited form to conform with the publication ban.

The document describes how the bomb-plot suspects were followed, wiretapped and infiltrated by police agents before the 2006 roundup. The document “provides a chilling and terrifying glimpse of what was likely to occur,” Judge Durno ruled.

Two down ...

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions(§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail, is some good news:


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/another-toronto-18-suspect-pleads-guilty/article1296714/

Another 'Toronto 18' suspect pleads guilty
Man enters guilty plea to one count of participating in a terrorist group; was considered peripheral player in plot that targeted Ont. Landmarks

COLIN FREEZE

Tuesday, Sep. 22, 2009

Another suspect in Canada's so-called "Toronto 18" terrorism case has pleaded guilty to a terrorism charge.

Ali Dirie pleaded guilty yesterday to one count of participating in a terrorist group.

He was considered a peripheral player in a plot that targeted southern Ontario landmarks, a case of homegrown terrorism in Canada that led to 18 arrests and, now, three convictions.

Now in his mid-20s, Mr. Dirie had been arrested and convicted of a gunrunning charge before the training camp and bomb plot in which other suspects are accused of participating in. He still faces a charge involving smuggling a handgun across the Canada-U.S. border.

Submissions for his sentencing will be made tomorrow, and Mr. Dirie will be sentenced on Friday, Oct. 2. Crown prosecutor Clyde Bond declined to say what prison term he'd seek.

Mr. Dirie is the second adult to plead guilty in as many months in the Toronto terrorism conspiracy that sparked the high-profile arrests of young extremists across the city in 2006.

After a surprise guilty plea last month, confessed bomb-plotter Saad Khalid was sentenced early this month to 14 years in prison after admitting he was part of a scheme to explode truck bombs in downtown Toronto. Mr. Khalid was caught unloading boxes marked "ammonium nitrate" from the back of a truck.

In handing down a stern ruling - despite mitigating factors such as Mr. Khalid's age, remorse and tangential role - Mr. Justice Bruce Durno said this month that Canadian courts have an obligation to punish terrorism harshly.

"Canadian society relies on ballots and not bullets or bombs to change policy," he wrote in the 48-page decision read aloud in court on Sept. 3. " ... Terrorist offences are the most vile form of criminal conduct."

In what was considered the first successful conviction on Canada's 2001 anti-terrorism laws, a youth was found guilty a year ago of attending a makeshift terrorism training camp north of Toronto.

After the arrest of 18 people in June, 2006, the case had been dubbed the "Toronto 18" conspiracy.

Seven suspects were let go on peace bonds. Eight adults arrested in the case will face trial in the new year. A publication ban is still in effect in the case of Mr. Dirie, preventing the publication of details that could identify the other accused.

Two down!

 

[Edward Campbell]

And some not so good news, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Ottawa Citizen:

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Judge+dramatically+eases+restrictions+Harkat/2016155/story.html

Judge dramatically eases restrictions on Harkat
Ottawa terror suspect jubilant, vows to clear name

By Chris Cobb, The Ottawa Citizen

September 21, 2009

OTTAWA-Tears of joy and relief poured down Mohamed Harkat’s cheeks Monday as he heard a Federal Court judge lift the strictest of bail conditions the accused terrorist has been living under since being released from jail three years ago.

“It’s impossible to overestimate what a significant change this will have on his life,” said Harkat’s lawyer Norm Boxall. “It gives them freedom where previously they had none. He couldn’t go into his backyard without being supervised. You can’t imagine what it’s like to live for years under these kind of restraints and suddenly to be freed from them.”

The decision, and extent of the government concessions, clearly surprised Harkat, his wife Sophie and the family’s supporters, who packed the courtroom to hear what was expected to be a comparatively routine application by Harkat’s lawyers for an easing of the bail order.

But government lawyers pre-empted the hearing with the shock announcement to Federal Court Justice Simon Noël that they would not object to the lifting of 24-hour surveillance outside the Harkat home by Canada Border Services agents and nor would they object to the Algerian-born Harkat travelling alone within the borders of the capital region.

It appears to be a significant retreat by the government in a case conducted largely in secret.

Prior to Monday’s decision, the former pizza deliveryman had a strict curfew and was not allowed to leave his house unaccompanied. His phone was tapped and he was not allowed to read his own mail without it first being vetted by security agents.

Surveillance cameras inside and outside the Harkat house also monitored his movements.

A beaming Harkat left the Supreme Court building, where the Federal Court is housed, to the rousing cheers and applause of his family and friends and emerged into the bright late morning sunshine to say that the ruling came as a huge relief.

“I feel good,” he said. “This will affect all things. I am always worried about accidentally breaking conditions. There were too many conditions to remember. It was hard to think normal. It was like being on another planet.

“I still don’t know why I was arrested,” he added. “I want to clear my name. That’s what we’re fighting for.”

Under Monday’s ruling, Harkat must continue to live with a GPS security ankle bracelet and continues to be barred from using a computer or a cellphone or a landline phone at any location other than his own home.

He had previously been barred from using any type of telephone.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) contends that 42-year-old Harkat is an al-Qaeda sleeper agent. The federal government is using the secretive security certificate process in an effort to deport him to his native Algeria.

Harkat came to Canada and applied for refugee status in 1995 after five years living in Pakistan, where he said he worked as a warehouse manager for the Muslim World League.

CSIS alleges that he travelled to Afghanistan in the early 1990s and developed a relationship with al-Qaeda lieutenant Abu Zubaydah, who ran two terrorist camps.

Harkat denies all the allegations and the government has used federal security legislation to keep secret whatever evidence it has.

Defence lawyer Boxall said Monday that he didn’t know why the government had changed its position on the bail restrictions but speculated it might be rooted in a revelation that a key CSIS source in the case had failed a lie-detector test.

A top-secret letter made public June 5 showed that CSIS had left Judge Noël with a distorted impression of the informant’s reliability and in a separate letter to the court senior CSIS legal counsel Michael Duffy said the agency’s lack of total honesty was “inexcusable” and “of profound concern to the service.

“It belies the commitment of the service and its employees to the judicial process,” wrote Duffy.

The government won’t say why it has changed its position but Boxall said he assumes CSIS has conducted a new risk assessment on Harkat.

“They have come to the conclusion that Mr. Harkat is not the risk that they thought,” said Boxall, “which is what we’ve always believed. This might suggest that their case is getting weaker but we don’t know.”

While a radical change for the better, the remaining conditions should also be lifted, added Boxall, because they still make it almost impossible for Harkat to find employment.

The battery-operated GPS system on Harkat’s right ankle needs charging for two hours a day and requires him to lie motionless during the recharging process.

“I bet every one of you has a cellphone,” said Boxall during an impromptu news conference. “They are everyday tools. Cells and computers are pretty much part of any employment in 2009. He hasn’t seen a computer screen since 2002.”

Harkat spent 31⁄2 years in jail after being arrested in December 2002. He was released almost three years ago after agreeing to 18 bail conditions that amounted to ultra-strict house arrest.

Those conditions allowed the government to raid Harkat’s house without warning, which is what 13 of its security agents, along with Ottawa police officers and sniffer dogs, did last May.

The controversial six-hour raid came three weeks before a rare public hearing in the case to determine whether the government’s security certificate against Harkat was reasonable.

That hearing is delayed until January next year because of the raid and because of concerns around CSIS’s handling of the case.

The agents took dozens of boxes of items from the house and seized Sophie’s computer, which was kept in the basement, an area Harkat is barred from entering.

The raid and its timing clearly irritated Noël, who amended Harkat’s bail conditions requiring government agents to get the equivalent of a search warrant prior to any other raid.

Harkat said he is looking forward to his new freedom.

He said his first act, as a relatively free man, would be to honour a promise to his 10-year-old niece Gabrielle Brunette and take her to dinner.

Asked where she wanted her uncle to take her, Gabrielle said she didn’t really care.

“We can go to Home Depot if he wants,” she said, threading her arm through Harkat’s.

Harkat’s wife, prime surety and former court-ordered chaperone Sophie, was more emphatic.

“I’m alone tonight,” she laughed, “I’m going to go party.”

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen​

It appears, to me, that CSIS continues to believes that Harkat is a still a threat but the requirements of national security and the requirements of justice and the law cannot be reconciled. So, I assume he will be kept under more distant surveillance  - until, I guess he makes a mistake and compromises himself or CSIS concludes that he is too far “out of contact” to remain as a threat.

 

[Greymatters]

For instance, while several of the articles listed in these 4 pages are of foiled plots (i.e. plot to import nuclear technology into Iran), the Parisian bombing suspect probably has some useful information that might prevent an attack in the future (though admittedly his might be less useful as its nearly 20+ years old.) Has Canada ever used their arrested suspects as sources of intelligence on their methods, as opposed to just as sources of information on the attack itself?

One of those questions that is unlikely to be answered here...

 

[Edward Campbell]

Here, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail, is a report on another case where the security restrictions on another suspected security risk are removed because, ”court orders for greater and greater disclosure jeopardized the spy agency's sources and methods. So, nearly all of the wiretaps and most of the human sources against Mr. Charkaoui were pulled from the case:”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/judge-lifts-charkaoui-restrictions/article1299943/

Judge lifts Charkaoui restrictions

In midst of legal arguments over the end of a security certificate on Charkaoui, the judge makes the sudden ruling from the bench

Les Perreaux and Colin Freeze

Montreal, Toronto
Thursday, Sep. 24, 2009

Adil Charkaoui, a Moroccan held on a controversial “security certificate” for the past six years, will be a free man by the end of the day.

Federal Court Judge Danièle Tremblay-Lamer said she will issue an order by the end of the day lifting all conditions on the alleged terrorist.

In the midst of legal arguments over the end of a security certificate on Mr. Charkaoui, the judge made the sudden ruling from the bench just before lunch.

“There will be an order all conditions be revoked immediately,” the judge said.

Mr. Charkaoui's lawyer had just blasted the government for “legal acrobatics” trying to drop the case while leaving room for an appeal and keeping conditions on Mr. Charkaoui for the short term.

“It's almost willful blindness, not to see the harm being done. It's abuse, government abuse, it's not something that should be sanctioned by the court,” said his lawyer, Johanne Doyon.

The conditions on Mr. Charkaoui included electronic monitoring, bail and an order he not associate with certain people. He had been jailed from 2003 until 2005 after federal officials branded him an al-Qaeda threat, but was gradually granted increasingly liberty as the case stalled.

The Crown is asking the judge to leave an opening for an appeal later.

The unusual legal gambit followed the Canadian Security Intelligence Service's decision to pull evidence from its case. CSIS, Canada's spy agency, initiates security certificate cases by making recommendations to federal officials.

The security-certificate law allows for CSIS to keep the evidence secret, and present it to judges and ministers in secret hearings. However, several high court judges have ordered greater transparency in recent years – often following legal challenges from Mr. Charkaoui himself.

Crown lawyers argued that while the CSIS case against Mr. Charkaoui remains fundamentally solid, court orders for greater and greater disclosure jeopardized the spy agency's sources and methods. So, nearly all of the wiretaps and most of the human sources against Mr. Charkaoui were pulled from the case.

“The disclosure of this information would be injurious to national security, and compromise the ability to effectively investigate security threats to Canadians,” CSIS spokeswoman Manon Berube said in an e-mailed statement to The Globe. “Among the most important elements of security intelligence collection is human sources. It is imperative that CSIS protect its sources, and guarantee their anonymity.”

Today's developments are another nail in the coffin of security certificates, a controversial tool that Ottawa has relied upon since the Cold War, to kick out foreign spies and alleged terrorists.

This position follows several embarrassing court-ordered revelations, including that CSIS has buried information from dubious sources and repeated evidence from U.S. allies who subjected al-Qaeda suspects to the harsh interrogations.

The security-certificate tool has been used about once a year since it was put on the books in the early 1990s, but no new cases have been launched in three years.

During the past two decades, the law has been used less than 30 times.

Once seen as an efficient means of deporting non-citizens who were branded threats, the future of security certificates are in doubt. It's proven increasingly difficult for Ottawa to deport such suspects given increasing constitutional challenges and the likelihood of foreign torture.

Through the power, federal ministers sign off on a certificate after viewing secret CSIS information, which allows officials to immediately jail, and eventually deport, a non-citizen.

The “intelligence” used to do this is disclosed to judges but never fully revealed to the accused, drawn as it usually is from secret agents and wiretaps, sometimes placed within Canada but also frequently “loaned” from foreign governments on condition that the provenance be kept secret.

As more and more CSIS agents are grudgingly compelled into court, they are digging in their heels against revealing secrets – not just in the handful of active security-certificate cases, but also in trials for terrorism suspects facing jail or extradition Security certificates have long shown diminishing returns for the government, to the point that some officials now talk about the power in the past tense. The five active security certificate cases are legacies of mid-1990s intelligence investigations involving immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa.

Tens of millions dollars annually and dozens of federal officials are consumed by these cases, through constant litigation, ongoing monitoring of detainees, and a special prison built in 2005 that has only one detainee.

Counter-intelligence needs to be done in the shadows; law enforcement needs to finisgh in court.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Just in case people think CSIS has no basis to suspect people, this article, reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions (§29) of the Copyright Act from today’s Globe and Mail, tells us that one of the accused Toronto 18 ”admitted Wednesday to procuring weapons, arranging false travel documents and trying to recruit extremists for a domestic terrorist group that planned bloody attacks on Canadian targets:”

Accused in terror plot purchased weapons and recruited others, court told
In lengthy agreed statement of facts, Crown tells court how Ali Dirie, who pleaded guilty Monday, was close to the alleged co-leader of the so-called Toronto 18

BRAMPTON, Ont. — The Canadian Press

Wednesday, Sep. 23, 2009 03:25PM EDT

A Toronto man admitted Wednesday to procuring weapons, arranging false travel documents and trying to recruit extremists for a domestic terrorist group that planned bloody attacks on Canadian targets.

In a lengthy agreed statement of facts, the Crown told court how Ali Dirie, who pleaded guilty Monday, was close to the alleged co-leader of the so-called Toronto 18 and continued his role in the conspiracy even while incarcerated.

Mr. Dirie knew the group followed an “extremist interpretation of Islam” and intended to commit terrorist acts, Crown lawyer Clyde Bond told Ontario Superior Court.

Those acts were for a religious purpose and meant to “intimidate the public,” Mr. Bond said.

Justice Bruce Durno convicted Mr. Dirie, 26, of one count of taking part in and helping a terrorist group. That makes Mr. Dirie the third person now convicted in the plot to bomb Canadian targets such as RCMP headquarters and nuclear facilities, attack Parliament and take hostages.

The Crown stayed a second charge of committing an offence for the group – dubbed the Toronto 18 because of the number of people arrested in the summer of 2006 in the anti-terrorism sweep.

Mr. Dirie faces a maximum of 10 years, with Crown and defence indicating to Justice Durno they would jointly recommend a sentence.

The only issue, Mr. Bond said, was how much credit Mr. Dirie would get for the time he has already spent behind bars.

Dressed in a grey hoodie, jeans and head-cap, Mr. Dirie listened quietly to the 28-page account of the evidence against him, rising only to say softly, “Yes, I do,” when asked if he accepted the agreed statement of facts.

Court heard how Mr. Dirie had been jailed after being caught with loaded weapons at the Canada-U.S. border as he and another man returned from the United States in August 2005.

Much of the terror-group evidence against Mr. Dirie was based on wiretaps of telephone conversations he had with the alleged co-leader of the conspiracy, who cannot be named under a publication ban.

Even after his incarceration, Mr. Dirie still considered himself an active member of the group and devoted to the jihadist cause, court heard.

He continued trying to get guns for himself and others, tried to get false travel documents for himself and other group members, and tried to indoctrinate fellow inmates at Ontario's Collins Bay penitentiary to the extremist cause.

Court heard how the co-leader attempted to send him a package of books and CDs containing violent videos of attacks and bombings on military personnel and other jihadist propaganda.

“Dirie was recruiting people . . . to join the jihadist group,” Mr. Bond told court.

He also encouraged and advised the co-leader in a series of phone calls.

During the calls, Mr. Dirie actually bragged about the pleasant conditions in jail – including his access to a basketball court, showers and work.

“This place is luxury, man,” he said during one call, court heard.

He also decried moderate Muslims and professed his readiness to “take orders” along with his commitment to the extremist cause.

The two men chatted about “pure girls,” wives, and women – which court heard are all code for guns.

Mr. Dirie was serving a two-year sentence for the weapons offences at the time two camps were held that police said were in preparation for the attacks. The car he and the other man were in when stopped at the border had been rented using a credit card belonging to the co-leader, court heard.

Earlier this month, 23-year-old Saad Khalid was handed a 14-year prison sentence for his part in the plot after pleading guilty in May. Nishanthan Yogakrishnan, 21, was found guilty by a judge and convicted last September of participating in, and contributing to, a terrorist group.

In the summer of 2006, an intense investigation involving Canada's spy agency and the RCMP ended with the arrests of 18 people in the Toronto area and the seizure of apparent bomb-making materials.

Eight men, including the alleged leaders of the group, are in custody awaiting trial.

Seven of the 18 people arrested have since had their charges dropped or stayed.

Three down!

The threat, of attacks - right here in Canada, by home grown terrorists, is real.