Accused, Charged, Tried, Found Guilty

Momin Khawaja, a young Canadian Muslim of Pakistani origin living in a suburb of Canada's capital, was sentenced to life in prison for terrorism activities. He represents the first individual convicted under a special law that the Canadian justice system put in place to deal with terrorists in the wake of the attacks on the United States of 11 September, 2001. In a very recent interview the young man revealed his experience and his thoughts on what it was that drew him toward acting on his religious-inspired beliefs leading him to terrorist activities.

Of course to Momin Khawaja the activities he was involved in were not terrorist in nature, but rather a response to what he took to be western-dominated attacks against people just like him; originating in the Middle East, south or central Asia, where Islam is the dominant religion, the way of life, the social compact, the political ideology. Western interests were held by him and others who believed as he did, to be politically manipulative and geared toward stripping Islam of glory and the countries involved of their natural assets.

The narrative to which he subscribed was one that had fairly common currency in the surprisingly closed society he moved in, as a Muslim immigrant in Canada, attending a local mosque in Orleans, just within Ottawa. Hugely supplemented by searches undertaken on the Internet, and visiting websites that both confirmed and massively added to conclusions he had already been enabled to reach. These conclusions did not leap out in one fell swoop; they were arrived at gradually, he explained.

"For me, it was gradual. There was no moment of enlightenment." The ages-old story claimed of an ethnic group, a minority religion of foreign origin and viral discrimination. Born, and for the most part raised in Canada, his passage to Islamist extremism was facilitated by the community in which he and his family moved, interacted and found comfort in; other former residents of Islamic countries who decided for one reason or another; internal unrest, lack of opportunities, civil wars, political uncertainties; to leave their places of birth and find their futures in Canada.

As immigrants, they looked back with fond memory on what they left behind, irrespective of the reasons that drove them to migrate beyond their former countries' borders. And obviously despite the respite and equality under the law they found in their new country. What they saw as they looked back toward what they had left, was evidence of the country whose values they were expected to adopt, along with its fellow democracies bringing havoc to the Middle East, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Muslims are wholly invested in the belief that Islam is the one true religion, above reproach. And that Muslims are never guilty of oppressing and violently attacking others. Not only do they never commit violent atrocities against western interests, nor do they commit violence against those of their own religion. Refusing to subscribe to the reality that Islamic sects are murderously inclined toward one another, that fundamentalists prey on those insufficiently Islamic for their standards, let alone commit to violence against the unbelievers.

Momin Khawaja was a person of interest to the RCMP, alerted by British authorities that he was involved with other young Muslim men who were living in Britain, planning terrorist activities. He was arrested in 2004, stood trial in 2008 and found guilty of participating in, contributing to, financing and facilitating a group of British Islamists who were determined to pinpoint and target  crowded popular areas in London where bombs of their manufacture could be set off to cause the most damage to frail human flesh.

Momin Khawaja

Mr. Khawaja was not proven in court of being an accomplice of those apprehended in Britain, to slaughter civilians. He was held guilty of facilitating their plans, and of designing and building a device to aid in timing the explosives planned. And now in the current interview he insists that the plotters with whom he was aligned were wrong to want to "harm innocent civilians and not military combatants". This is the same man who was busy while in prison awaiting trial and sentencing, recruiting among other prisoners for induction into Islam.

He claims that before his arrest he was on the cusp of booking a flight out of Canada to arrive in either Afghanistan or Iraq, to become a mujahadeen, and commit himself to battling alongside others to convey his rage against all those foreigners fighting Muslims by becoming one of those Muslims pleased to be seen as extremists, doing honour to their faith that demands of its adherents an obligation to violent, avenging jihad. Islam encourages its followers to use verbal tactics to throw off suspicion that would interfere with such intentions.

Momin Khawaja excuses himself by repeating that he was unable to escape news footage and news headlines of civilians being slaughtered by the war against Islam. Which situation led inevitably to his conversion to orthodoxy and then to jihad. "It was upsetting to me because I connected to that region. It was a difficult time and there was a lot going on in the world. In a war, you have two sides and you pick a side. I was prepared to go help defend individuals with the tribal groups."

And indeed to that end, he had travelled before to Pakistan, he trained at a paramilitary camp there, learning how to use weapons. "I felt a connection with these people and, in my mind, it was a good channel for my energy or output at the time", he said of coming across like-minded Muslims as he on the Internet. And even at home, in Orleans, news of civilian deaths in war zones kept intruding: "Everyone was talking about it", in the gym, at the mosque, he explained.

The Khawaja family in Orleans, living in a pleasant middle-class neighbourhood in a pleasant, middle-class two-story home, with Momin, the elder son, employed as a contract worker in IT at the Department of Foreign Affairs, his father off doing contract work in the Middle East, seemed like a normal, everyday Canadian immigrant family. He did well in high school, was a math whizz.

His free time was spent at the area mosque in Orleans, a small house converted into a mosque. He became an observant Muslim, praying five times daily, discussing with others the racist taunts, went the narrative, that not he, but others had been subject to on the street. When his family's home was searched after his arrest by the RCMP, several registered weapons were found in his bedroom.

U.S. foreign policy and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as far as he is concerned, are to blame for inciting Muslims to radicalize. This would never have happened, as a deadly revenge campaign, otherwise known as violent, martyrdom-obsessed jihad, had the Americans not prepared the groundwork. He is not guilty, he stresses, of committing to murder innocent civilians; his targets were the military; he was entrapped due to misunderstanding of his motivation.

His punishment is not enviable by any measure; hardly an improvement on a death sentence. Solitary confinement for up to 23 hours daily. Most of his 'exercise' undertaken as brisk 'walks' around and within the confines of his prison cell. Weight-training using whatever replacements of the usual paraphernalia he can himself devise from whatever is at hand. He is given reading material, seldom watches a television he has access too.

But he prays often and reads fitness magazines, and writes about his life for his case-management officer. A model inmate. The physical fitness has a purpose; it is important; physical fitness has a place in military life. He eats  his halal-provided prison meals, slipped to him through a meal slot. He has taken university history courses by mail. He prays. He may be eligible at some future date for parole; at the very least a parole board hearing for a model prisoner accused of terrorism.