Unfortunate Misunderstanding

"Is that all you want to tell us? Why were you talking like this? Is there a reason you didn't say, 'I don't like the way this conversation is going?' Were you intimidated? Were you tired?"
Ontario Superior Court Justice Charles Hackland

"I realize I should have been more mature. In retrospect, it's what I should have done. I wish I could go back and take it all away."
"I am wondering whether I should tell him I don't agree with that stuff or should I play along. I didn't really like it but wanted to find out more about him and his views. I'd never heard him talk like this before. He was saying some stupid things, too."
"It was late at night. The whole day I'd spent moving. I was tired but there I was in the middle of this strange conversation."
"I just assumed it couldn't be real. I might be academically bright but a lot of people say I'm naive. I had no intention of doing any of this. It was curiosity, I guess."
"I was surprised at the things I said. I was shaking my head. How could I sound so dumb?"
Khurram Sher, accused terrorist conspirator

Dr. Khurram Syed Sher, right, says he was in fact trying to see if his acquaintances, not pictured, were serious about their terrorism talk. Photographed by: Mike Carroccetto, Ottawa Citizen

Calm, well spoken, 31-year-old Khurram Sher who is, after all, an educated man, a medical pathologist whose expertise is in much demand in Canada, and whose profession pays extremely well, so why wouldn't he be well spoken, and with a certain level of confidence. No doubt carefully coached by his team of high-priced criminal lawyers very accomplished in legal jousting in a court of law on behalf of their clients, innocent until 'proven' guilty.

They do their utmost to 'prove' innocence by their careful parsing of the evidence, by their meticulous interpretations and specialized picking away at the testimony of those prepared to give evidence for the Crown, to instill doubt in the minds of juries, and in this particular case, consternation at the very least in the mind of a judge trying this serious case of a suspected terrorist conspiracy without a jury.

"I don't believe in violence" the articulate, confident Mr. Sher informed the court. "I believe in giving back to the community." A rather shopworn, hackneyed phrase that highlights the speaker's bona fides as an innocent bystander to a malevolent plan that had nothing, nothing whatever to do with him. His arrest in 2010 at a time when he was just one month into a position as pathologist at St.Thomas Elgin General Hospital near London, Ontario at a $365,000 annual take-home-pay was most inconvenient.

Mr. Sher believes in 'giving back to the community', and so he supports charitable causes to the tune -- his lead lawyer was careful to point out, attesting to his client's sterling character -- of $10,000 according to his last tax return. If there are two issues that stand large in Islamist circles, it is 'charity' and it is 'jihad'. Ahmad Khadr, father of Omar Khadr, worked for a charity that funnelled funds through to his great good friend Osama bin Laden.

From from a video introduced into evidence by the Crown shows Khurram Sher in Pakistan in the aftermath of the 2005 South Asian earthquake, where Sher was said to be working with a group called the Canadian Muslim Relief Council.    Photograph by: Evidence exhibit photo , RCMP

 

And the neutral listener's heart just has to melt when hearing of a young Pakistani-Canadian travelling to Pakistan in 2005 for the purpose of proffering humanitarian aid after a devastating earthquake. "We were all young and able-bodied and landslides had damaged roads. We had brought medicine. We loaded up bags and knapsacks and trekked out." That's the stuff of unalloyed decency. But this is not:

• K. Sher: And people always come to see, like the public and stuff. So, you, uh, so you could, or we could, but it would look suspicious with beards and stuff.
• Co-conspirator: To be there?
• K. Sher: To be there as uh, or maybe you wear.
• Co-conspirator: Overlapping conversation -- inaudible.
• K. Sher: Canada colours or something. I don't know but, anyways.
• Co-conspirator: It means shaving. You put on a big hat and then.
• K. Sher: So that, so you could really go up close at that point.
• Co-conspirator: And see the whole thing.
• K. Sher: To the main base where they bring back the, you know, the bodies and stuff.
• Co-conspirator: So, we can send someone who doesn't look anywhere close to us.
• K. Sher: [Overlapping] Shady.

The interpretation of a conversation, presumably from Arabic into English from the one that was recorded thanks to the listening devices placed in the apartment by members of the RCMP's Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams and produced as evidence. Where Khurram Sher had introduced the possibility of staging some manner of attack, seemingly fittingly, during a repatriation ceremony at Canadian Forces Base Trenton.

So, simple human curiosity led this man to involve himself in a purported -- well, it certainly sounds like one -- terrorist plot. But he was not actually involved in anything remotely untoward. Lending his opinion to people whom he has become aware are interested in launching jihad in Canada. He is among other young Muslim men, two of whom appear to have surrendered to the allure of violent jihad.

But who is he to judge? He is hard-wired by his compassionate character to be useful, giving them the benefit of a few ideas. But not remotely connected to this kind of thing. So unconnected that he cannot conceive of other young men dying at the hands of the two he is being so helpful to. So remote from the situation that it would never occur to him that he has an obligation as a law-abiding citizen, a loyal Canadian, to alert authorities.

But he is a devoted Muslim, a father of three young children, a talented medical professional who has nothing whatever to do with terror conspiracies.