Signalling Playful Curiosity?

Security agents involved in an covert surveillance of several individual who have come to their notice as possibly representing a threat to society, obtain a court order then enter the temporarily-unoccupied home of the resident to discover:

• "How-to" booklets and simple diagrams for the edification of the amateur bomb-maker;
• Basic chemistry instructions explaining the method by which inert chemicals can be converted to deadly explosives...the instructions preceded by the blessing: "in the name of the merciful God";
• A booklet detailing how to remotely detonate a bomb with detailed diagrams included;
• Jihadist videos featuring what can only be presumed to represent military vehicles exploding as they pass over improvised explosive devices on highways in Iraq;
• Another booklet, this one titled The Creed and Methodology of al-Qaeda in Iraq;
• Ah, a booklet entitled How to Kidnap Americans.

Naturally enough, the first thought that comes to mind for these seasoned detectives is that they have uncovered the secret aspirations of an amateur theatre producer, wishing to avail himself of bona fide information to help make his stage production appear realistically convincing. Alternately, that some persons have a burning curiosity to enlighten themselves about such exotic and forbidden things as violent jihad.

And after satisfying their own curiosity, the security police realize there is nothing there to be concerned about. They carefully replace everything just where they discovered them to have been placed by their owner, fearful of upsetting the resident, of inciting him to understandable anger that his right to privacy has been assaulted, and intimations of his good character besmirched.

And then the detectives also come across another video featuring images of the late lamented al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, and flashes of the World Trade Centre buildings aflame and collapsing, with desperate victims leaping off the sides to their death. Goodness, isn't that the famed/infamous event of September 11, 2001?

Whoops! Here's another video. Obviously this individual is quite, quite serious about his curiosity. This video features young suicide bombers doing their thing for Islam in Somalia. Naturally enough, given this treasury of curious objects to have been discovered in the home of a Canadian citizen living right in the capital city of the country, the conclusion is drawn that, perhaps there is something seriously amiss?

"It's a clear exhortation to terrorist violence. It goes on ad nauseum", stated Crown prosecutor Jason Wakeley, so obviously intemperately of the reams of jihadist propaganda unearthed by the RCMP security service officers of material they took to represent the urging of Muslims, as a kind of guide to the perplexed, to wage war against "infidels and apostates". The literature urgently bade its readers to recruit non-violent Muslims to join the jihad.

Now, the obviously innocent curiosity of a citizen of Canada relating to jihad and wishing to inform himself of its details has led to the arrest of three individuals charged with conspiring to commit terrorist acts within Canada. How utterly unfair and completely unfounded. Where is the evidence? Particularly any evidence to point to the first of the three individuals to be placed on trial, Khurram Sher, a very nice Canadian-born man, father of three young children, a medical doctor.

Born in Montreal, raised a Canadian of Pakistani extraction, he received his university education in Canada, along with the opportunity as a citizen, to enjoy all the freedoms, liberties and aspirational opportunities available to all Canadians in an egalitarian pluralistic society. To suggest that such a man would embark on such an unbelievable trajectory in his otherwise successful and presumably satisfying life defies logic.

Does it not?

One hundred RCMP officers were involved in this eleven-month operation which began in 2010 initiated by a tip from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service in an anti-terrorist investigation named Operation Samosa. The arrests took place when they did when the RCMP felt it was time to thwart suspected attacks in Ottawa and they thought likely, at Canadian Forces Base Trenton. An earlier-than-anticipated arrest to take a man preparing to leave the country, into police custody.

Commanders with the RCMP Integrated Security Enforcement Team conducted its first "covert search" in February 2010. They partially copied contents of a computer and USB keys, uncovering other evidence in their case, while some of their members kept cautionary watch outside the home. When the interior team received warning the resident was returning they were forced to abort copying computer files, and leave with what they had.

Mr. Sher, at the time of his arrest, just recently moved to London, Ontario to take up a position as a pathologist at a local hospital, is pleading not guilty to those unfair charges of conspiracy in a terrorist plot. The initial court exposure to a 70-minute recording dating from a casual dinner meeting between the three accused at the home in question proved inconclusive to the accused's participation in discussions of among other things, jihadist activities.

But those discussions did take place in his presence.

Defence lawyer Michael Edelson, skilled at interviewing, grilling and defusing prosecution and expert witness accounts, has pointed out what he takes to be a number of transcript identification errors relating to his client. Ontario Superior Court Justice Charles Hackland, trying the case without a jury was informed by Mr. Edelson it would be "dangerous" to trust some aspects of the evidence related to his client.