A Combustible Human Being

 A Combustible Human Being

"He was a combustible human being with little sense of morals or repercussions. I don't think Mr. Nuttall had the capability to type the word 'manifesto', never mind create or follow one. He was just a bad guy.
"In a few instances, John and his friends would roam the streets looking for street kids, drug addicts and other types of people to attack for their own entertainment."
Victoria artist Jesse Ladret

This is the description of John Nuttall by someone who knew him, second-hand, as it were. A full-bore lunatic. Mr. Ladret described in an interview that John Nuttall had once beat a friend of his, poet and author Lawrence Braithwaite. Beaten him so badly that the man suffered brain damage. "I believe this was motivated by the fact that Lawrence was both black and homosexual." Nasty in the extreme; as a human being, nothing salvageable.

But wait: it seems he was himself an artist, a musician. "He would always show up to rehearsals wasted or on some kind of substance. He was difficult to work with." Despite being "drunk all the time", however, Lust Boys Band frontman Tommy Thrust recalled John Nuttall playing songs from memory like a savant. "As a musician he was talented" said another member of the band. "I only know two people in Victoria who could play as well as that."

The Lust Boys, however ill their memory of the now-infamous John Nuttall, wanted to put plenty of space between him and them. They placed a website notice to alert fans distancing themselves from the man, clarifying that they had "never endorsed nor been affiliated with any terrorist plots". As though anyone might suspect them to have been involved. They seem sane enough. The slim thread to notoriety might even help their careers.

Mr. Nuttall, on the other hand... In the late 1990s he lived homeless on the streets of Victoria. In 1996 this public menace was given a 18-month prison sentence as a result of beating a man to the extent that he had to have his kidney removed. And in 2003, he returned to prison after smashing a pedestrian on the head with a rock to enable him to make off with his briefcase. In his defence he claimed to be hallucinating from cocaine use.

His lawyer, however, has a different take: "In any and all of my dealings with John, he's never presented to me to be anything other than a gentle, kind, caring compassionate person." Now that's the kind of lawyer anyone might want to secure the professional talents of; personally oblivious to the obvious, and obviously prepared to believe in the honesty and innocence of his clients.

In point of fact, his client might just be innocent enough, in a way. He may have been the victim of entrapment, of an over-zealous security team anxious to wrap up their surveillance of a mentally disturbed psychopath, by persuading him that he was a valued member of their terrorist team, and leading him to the brilliant idea of putting together improved explosive devices on what would be for them a pretend-plot.

What might have led them to this bit of human flotsam? "He was wandering up and down the street in the middle of the night, like two o'clock in the morning yelling into his cellphone about blowing things up... saying he was prepared to do whatever he had to do to get to the afterlife", explained neighbour Charlene Thompson. Neighbours, understand, have a habit of contacting authorities when they hear nutcases loudly discussing jihad in public, in the middle of the night.

Or perhaps even his posting on an on-line forum calling for musicians to join his No World Order "Moslim Punk Band". "We are new to Vancouver and looking to meet anyone else into Allah and hard-core punk Anything that makes you wanna mosh, the Koran and Allah". Oh, right, John Nottall and his girlfriend Amanda Korody were also paintball nuts. Ms. Korody alternated her dress code from burqa to camouflage.

Now, each is charged with placing explosives in a public place, possession of an explosive substance, and facilitating a terrorist activity. This is the newly-celebrated al-Qaeda-inspired duo apprehended by the RCMP on Canada Day for plotting to blow up three pressure-cooker bombs, a la Boston Marathon infamy.  CSIS first got wind of their infatuation with jihad, and introduced the RCMP to them.

From there on in, undercover work and gaining their trust as co-conspirators geared them toward Canada Day and the British Columbia Legislature. RCMP Assistant Commissioner Wayne Rideout balked at disclosing what CSIS had directed to the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team under Project Souvenir. The techniques police used in their evidence gathering is not to be publicly discussed.

As for the alleged terrorist plot that the security services so courageously stopped in the absolute nick of time: follow.the.dots.