Acquitted, but not Exonerated

"It's going to take a while to let it sink in."
"His career has been ended. He's lost over a million dollars in income, prestige in his community. It's been a very, very tough four years. His family has left, he's had reduced access to his children -- it's been tragic."
Michael Edelson, lawyer for Khurram Sher, charged with participation in a terror plot

Dr. Khurram Syed Sher walks out of the Ottawa courthouse with his lawyer, Michael Edelson after verdict. (Giuseppe Valiante/QMI Agency)

"Their manipulative effort to recruit (Sher) in the context of a late evening meeting, deprived the accused of any reasonable opportunity to consider, assess or reflect on whether to join the conspiracy. Not every extremist sympathizer or mujahedeen supporter is necessarily prepared to join a group contemplating violence in Canada."
Ontario Superior court Justice Charles Hackland

This Montreal-born, 31-year-old London, Ontario pathologist, a Canadian-born young man who grew up in Montreal and was preparing to take on a position as a well-paid hospital pathologist claims he stumbled inadvertently into a den of jihadis. To become one was never his intention. He had only chosen his friends badly, and was tangentially involved simply because he happened to be in the wrong place at the right time.

So when Khurram Sher, dropping by a friend's home to share an evening meal before driving on to his waiting hospital job in London, Ontario, was exposed to his friend's commitment to jihad, and was introduced to a friend of his friend who appeared to be expecting him as well to declare fealty to Islamist jihad, he joined the conversation, but refrained from following up afterward, though he did hand over $400 to help 'Kurdish orphans' but the funding was used to arm mujahedeen.

His lawyer argued that his client was innocent of malevolent intent, he was merely placed in an unfortunate compromising situation from which he had no idea how he might extricate himself without raising the ire of the two men who were not really fellow conspirators.  But they spoke convincingly enough between them of the possibility of creating bloody carnage in Canada, specifically at ceremonies returning Canada's military dead from Afghanistan.

And Khurram Sher, born and bred, educated and prepared to earn $365,000 annually as a medical professional, felt no moral compunction at the proposed violence, nor loyalty to Canada and fellow Canadians to alert security personnel to the potential of a jihadist attack on Canadian soil. His friend Misbahuddin Ahmed, another health professional, was found guilty of two of three offences related to terrorist activities.

Ontario Superior Court Justice Charles Hackland informed an Ottawa courtroom he had not personally been persuaded beyond a reasonable doubt that Khurram Sher was part of a plot with two co-conspirators. He believed the man had "jihadist sympathies" but remained unconvinced he intended to take part in what the judge characterized as a pre-existing terrorist conspiracy.

Mr. Sher is, in the judge's opinion, "naive, immature and inarticulate". The conversation that took place during their shared dinner spoke of building bombs, spoke of financially supporting the mujahedeen, and their need to form a jihad group. And they shared a pledge to al-Qaeda, and the Taliban. What fun.

"I think it is a legitimate question to ask in this case whether the accused, a medical doctor, someone dedicated to the preservation of human life, and with a track record of humanitarian involvement, raised in this country and enjoying the finest education opportunities anywhere, would so readily sign onto a group planning potential terrorist activities in Canada without careful consideration or reflection", pontificated the judge.

Is he not aware that the current head of al-Qaeda is a medical doctor, and that many well educated Islamists engage in violent jihad?

The Crown, according to prosecutor Jason Wakely would be considering an appeal. "If you pay close attention to the decision, you will see that Justice Hackland disbelieved almost everything that Sher said in his testimony. He was left in reasonable doubt about whether he sincerely intended to join a terrorist group and that is the crime, to have a sincere intention to join a terrorist group. While he said he intended to join, he never actually follows up on that."

But he was content, if he really wasn't involved to the extent that he planned to risk all to become an Islamist jihadi, to allow the other two, through his own inaction in alerting authorities, to follow through on their violent plans, wasn't he?