And ... In Conclusion

"Who does that? Who spends time so intently with a known terrorist?"
"It's easy to go into a witness box and say, 'I said that but I didn't mean it'. Mr. Ahmed believed, in 2010, that the Taliban should rule Afghanistan."
"There is nothing illegal in that belief, but it's relevant."
"The jihadist cause was his cause. He had a perceived duty to do something to advance the cause."
"If you're a peaceful, non-violent guy, why would you spend all that time with him and introduce him to your friend?"
"The case against Mr. Ahmed is overwhelming."
Jason Wakely, Crown prosecutor, Ottawa

Deliberations began Wednesday in the Misbahuddin Ahmed trial. He has pleaded has pleaded not guilty to three terrorism-related offences.

Mike Carroccetto / Ottawa Citizen

In summing up the Crown case against the 30-year-old former diagnostic imaging technician who worked at The Ottawa Hospital, prosecutor Jason Wakely summed up the Crown's final argument against a man who spent ten days defending himself on the witness stand, calmly denying he ever had any intention of waging violent jihad, joining a terrorist group and betraying his Canadian citizenship.

According to the prosecution, the conversations covertly recorded by the RCMP between three members of a jihadi cabal more than adequately spelled out a picture of three men deciding between them to do their part in the upheaval of violent Islamist causes justifying their action and intent by the hostility of the West against Islam.

The taped conversation that took place on July 20, 2010 between Misbahudden Ahmed, Khurram Sher and an unnamed third conspirator whose trial is set to commence when Mr. Ahmed's concludes presented clear evidence of the "expansion of a terrorist conspiracy". Mr. Ahmed had on that occasion introduced his friend Mr. Sher to the third man whose jihadi credentials were established and who had recruited the former two.

Why, asked the prosecution, would Mr. Ahmed introduce his friend Mr. Sher to such a clear menace  for any other reason than his sympathy for violent jihad? Mr. Sher's trial was the first of the trio to have taken place; the verdict on the conspiracy charge is forthcoming. Both men donated funding to the third among them, both insisting that the money they gave had a charitable purpose; that it had been used to fund weapons had been unknown to them.

The third man had experienced training in Afghanistan and experienced bomb-making exposure. Mr. Ahmed had been warned by other acquaintances to give the man who clearly had an unsavoury reputation a wide berth, but chose not to. He has denied guilt  in three terror-related offences: conspiring to facilitate a terrorist activity, participating in the activities of a terrorist group and possession of an explosive device.

The prosecution is almost wholly reliant for evidence on those RCMP sound probes, on wiretaps, Internet intercepts and surveillance that took place over a period of eight months. The three co-conspirators were arrested in August of 2010. Mr. Ahmed testified he was concerned with the poor and needy in Kurdistan and that was where he meant his donation to go. His money used to purchase weapons for terrorists was without his consent.

In fact, he found it difficult to seriously regard his co-conspirator's plans to form a terrorist group in Ottawa and went out of his way to persuade him to hand over circuit boards and bomb-making paraphernalia for himself to destroy as incriminating evidence. He did take possession of them, but then was too busy with routine family matters to dispose of them.

"It's the conversation that exonerates (him) on a serious charge", said Mr. Wakely of the conversation of destroying the components.

In his possession for a period of 23 days, the RCMP found the bag while searching Mr. Ahmed's home once he was arrested. It wasn't the first time they had seen the bag's contents, having previously unearthed them during an earlier search of his friend's home. "If he wanted to do that (destroy the bag), he could have done it very easily. He invented the story", stated the prosecutor, claiming Mr. Ahmed planned to work on the circuit boards, not to destroy them.

Mr. Ahmed agreed that his co-conspirator planned to arrange terrorist training for him, with his contacts in Afghanistan. He was interested in viewing the situation first-hand from the 'resistance' point of view, testified Mr. Ahmed, with no intention whatever in receiving terrorist training other than to assuage his curiosity by information-gathering. He had decided to string along with his co-conspirator to enable the journey to Afghanistan to take place.

A "ludicrous explanation, completely implausible", stated the prosecutor. The jury will be given final legal guidance by Ontario Superior Court Justice Colin McKinnon, and then they will begin the ordeal of parsing the evidence and reaching a verdict.

What's yours?