This Case Is Closed

"What the Supreme Court has done is given confidence to the notion that the Anti-terrorism Act was in some of its core provisions carefully and appropriately constructed.
"People were undoubtedly right to suspect that there might be things amiss with the legislation, but now it's been challenged in court and it's been challenged in appeals to the Supreme Court and now we can take a retrospective breath and say we've got a working law, which is what we need."
Wesley Wark, national security expert, visiting professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Ottawa.

This was a three-person appeal, three individuals held to be involved in terrorism, in support of terrorism, claiming that section 83.18 of the anti-terror law, constructed and placed into law by the Government of Canada in the wake of the 9-11 attacks in the U.S. is faulty, and can be shown to be an intimidating factor, stopping people from honestly expressing their opinions which they are guaranteed freedom to do under Charter rights.

But the Supreme Court was having none of it.  Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin brought down a unanimous decision rejecting the constitutional challenge brought by Momin Khawahja's law team against his conviction of 2008 leading to a life sentence for planning a London bombing campaign with British Islamist extremists, along with plans to wage a wider jihad against the West.

"Threats of violence, like violence, undermine the rule of law.  Threats of violence take away free choice and undermine freedom of action.  they undermine the very values and social conditions that are necessary for the continued existence of freedom of expression", the Court wrote.  Justice McLaughlin wrote that the original trial judge had "devalued the seriousness of the appellant's conduct in a way that was inconsistent with the evidence, and failed to give adequate weight to the ongoing danger (Khawaja) posed to society."

At that time, Momin Khawaja's lawyer Lawrence Greenspon thought otherwise, and he appealed that ruling of ten and a half years' imprisonment as excessive.  Which resulted in a decision from the Appeals Court that overturned the original trial judge with his parole eligibility after five years.  Two life terms, plus at least 44 additional years were what the Crown prosecutors had thought fitting to the crimes of which Momin Khawaja was charged.

The Ontario Court of Appeal didn't go that far, but it did alter the original 10.5-year sentence, upgrading it to a life sentence.  Khawaja claimed, through his lawyer, that terrorist offences definitions through the Criminal Code were too broad, violating the constitutional right to life, liberty and security, and through its interpretation causes innocent activities to be criminalized.

It never ceases to amaze that criminals who plot the violent murder of innocent others will always invoke their right to life, liberty and security.  Their own should be held sacrosanct under the law, they would have it, while the law inconveniently interferes with their intention to remove the right to life, liberty and security for others upon whom these malefactors seek to exact their particular brand of justice: group slaughter.

The Supreme Court pointed out further in their summation, that Khawaja "was committed to bringing death on all those opposed to his extremist ideology and took many steps to provide support to the group,  The bomb detonators he attempted to build would have killed many civilians had his plan succeeded.  A sentence of 10 and a half years does not approach an adequate sentence for such acts."  

The Ontario Court of Appeal, in the considered opinion of the Supreme Court, had sent a "clear and unmistakable message that terrorism is reprehensible and those who choose to engage in it (in Canada) will pay a very heavy price."  And so, the Supreme Court upheld Momin Khawaja's life sentence with no chance of parole for ten years - plus 24 consecutive years.

There was more than ample evidence to convict this man.  He had trained at a remote jihadist camp in Pakistan.  He helped to fund the British group planning terror attacks there.  He had committed to building remote-controlled triggers for the purpose of detonating fertilizer bombs which were to be set off in crowded, busy and popular areas around London. 

Khawaja's argument that he had no idea what his British counterparts were planning, that he was under the impression that the bomb-detonating components he was labouring on were meant for the Muslim insurgency in Afghanistan, not to terrorize London was unconvincing.  Obviously overlooking the fact that his argument, if accepted as remotely cogent, would have him responsible for the deaths of Canadian military personnel.

He contended that those extenuating circumstances should render him exempt from the terrorism law.  Again, the Court thought otherwise, that "there is no air of reality to the suggestion that Khawaja believed that the group intended to act in compliance with international law, or that he cared if it did" wrote Justice McLaughlin.

We can now stamp "finished" to this file.