Boggling the Imagination

"When I woke up and came to work this morning, this would have been way down my list of things that might have happened."
"It was surreal, actually, to hear. Nobody really saw this coming at all."
Paul Collins, president, CEO, St.Thomas Elgin General Hospital, London, Ontario

In point of fact, the revelation that three men of Middle East descent, born, educated and living in Canada, all of them successful professionals, had chosen to become a part of the Islamist jihadi menace targeting the West -- and more specifically in the case of these three Canadians, the very country in which they were born and received their social upbringing -- to wreak havoc and murder in Canada, came as a shock and surprise to pretty well the entire country.

Now, over three years after the arrest of the three and the public revelation of who they are, and what they planned, and the long security investigation that led to their arrest, one of the trio is finally being subjected to Canadian justice by trial; no jury, judge only. After three and a half years pathologist Dr. Khurram Syed Sher is set to be tried by an Ottawa court judge. On charges that he and his cohorts planned to detonate explosives in Ottawa.

Terror suspect Khurram Syed Sher leaves the Ottawa Courthouse after being granted bail in Ottawa on Wednesday, Oct. 13, 2010. More than three years after his arrest, Sher, who once auditioned for the Canadian Idol TV show, will face trial on a terrorism charge.    Photograph by: Sean Kilpatrick , THE CANADIAN PRESS

 

Ottawa necessarily, because it is the seat of government. So the 29-year-old doctor from London, Ontario, a father of three children faced the first day of his trial. It is anticipated that some details will be made public, but discreetly so. Overlapping evidence meant to be used in the trial of his two partners as well as himself will ensure that until all three trials have been completed, all the details involved will be withheld in the interests of blind justice.

Given the severity of the charges laid against the three co-conspirators it is more than a little surprising that Mr. Sher was out on bail, living in Toronto under close security scrutiny for the intervening years between arrest and trial. It was an eleven-month undercover operation that led to the arrest of the three men, preventing an imminent threat to the Ottawa area and "Canadian security", that gripped public fascination.

Less than a month after beginning pathology work at St. Thomas Elgin General Hospital, he was charged with one count of conspiring to facilitate a terrorist activity And the puzzle is why would a young, accomplished Canadian man with richly remunerative medical skills, a family man with three children, surrender all of that for the opportunity to become a terrorist, a concept immediately alien to most intelligent thought.