Complicity Involved

The first of three trials relating to a terrorism conspiracy charging three Canadian-born men of Middle East and South Asian ancestry for their plans to commit terrorist acts in Canada is being concluded. Montreal-born-and-educated Khurram Sher, a medical pathologist, has pleaded not guilty to conspiring with two other men to facilitate terrorist activities. The other two men's trials will follow on his.

He had been on his way from his home in Montreal to London, Ontario, where he had been offered employment at a London hospital, stopping in Ottawa to share dinner with friends. It is those friends who were charged along with Mr. Sher. The RCMP's Integrated National Security Enforcement Team had rigged recording devices in the apartment which Mr. Sher was visiting. The security team had been following the suspicious activities of the two men.

During the two week trial where the 31-year-old pathologist heard witnesses challenged by his defence lawyer, recordings of the three-way conversations between the charged men were heard in court. An Arab-speaking RCMP member had translated the conversation, though the constable informed the trial that he was not formally trained as a qualified translator. And this admission gave ammunition to Mr. Sher's lawyer to contend that the translation he provided was inaccurate and tainted.

The conversation that ensued over their shared dinner touched on many things, pedestrian and profane, both. The profane portion making allusions and references to the potential for acts of terrorism on Canadian soil and best-practise solutions. Mr. Sher, who had not been in the sights of the RCMP investigating team before his arrival at the apartment, now was swept up in their covert search for additional evidence of terrorism plans.

When Mr. Sher arrived at his London destination the RCMP bugged his home, his phone, his car, but no further evidence of terrorist activity, or contacts with either of the two men he had shared dinner and conversation with emerged. He was not further implicated, but he was implicated. You are known by the company you keep. It is also noted that when confronted with dangerous plots and nothing occurs on your part to protest or to alert authorities, you become complicit.

You are no longer innocent, a mere bystander, uninvolved when circumstances have involved you. When your loyalty to your country is betrayed by your silent determination to do nothing whatever to avert an impending disaster. For an impending disaster it was, before the suspects were arrested. A search of that Ottawa apartment had revealed bomb-making paraphernalia, "how-to" booklets, along with diagrams for bomb makers and instructions on remote detonating devices, as well as videos.

The RCMP investigators found jihadist propaganda urging Muslims of their responsibility to wage war against "infidels and apostates"; urgings as well to aggressively advocate for nonviolent Muslims to become part of the jihad. Pleading not guilty, professing innocence in light of the above, seems rather naively entitled. But yet enough for a Rottweiler-type lawyer who enjoys playing the system to dig his jaws into.