25 Years in a Russian Penal Colony

``When he heard he`d got 25 years` împrisonment¸ he said: `My self-esteem has gone up, I understand that I did everything right.``

``Ìt`s the biggest score I could have got for what I did, for what I believed in as a citizen and a patriot`.`'

Maria Eismont, lawyer for Vladimir Kara-Murza, Kremlin critic

Vladimir Kara-Murza pictured during a hearing in October 2022   AFP

 

Found guilty by a Moscow court on Monday, 41-year-old British-Russian citizen Vladimir Kara-Murza has been sentenced to 25 years` imprisonment, the absolute harshest sentence of its kind following Russia`s invasion of Ukraine. Found guilty of treason and other related offences he denied he committed. That he is a critic of the Kremlin and of President Vladimir Putin, is without doubt. He has been lobbying Western governments for years to impose sanctions on Russia in recognition of its many human rights abuses.

He had been accused by state prosecutors of treason, of discrediting the Russian military by spreading `knowingly false information` about the conduct of Russian servicemen in Moscow`s `special military operation`in Ukraine, for which prosecutors requested a 25-year prison term. Prior to his arrest Kara-Murza in an interview said Russia was run by a `regime of murderers`. He had spoken throughout the United States and Europe, lecturing and accusing Russia of bombing civilians in Ukraine.

When he heard the verdict on his punishment after he was pronounced guilty of treason and other offences, and knowing the next 25 years he was destined to be an inmate in a maximum security penal colony, Kara-Murza, seated within a glass courtroom cage, pronounced his own verdict of his country: `Russia will be free`, he stated calmly. He smiled and said the harsh sentence was regarded by him as recognition of his effectiveness as an opposition politician.

A week ago in a final speech to the court, Kara-Murza compared his trial, held behind closed doors, to Josef Stalin`s show trials in the 1930s. He was proud, he said, of everything he had accomplished, declining to ask the court for an acquittal. His lawyer, Eismont, announced that the legal team planned to appeal the verdict which she described as having been marred by legal violations. 

"I love and hate this man for his incredible integrity,"

"He had to be there with those people who went out on the streets and were arrested,`

"He wanted to show that you shouldn't be afraid in the face of that evil and I deeply respect and admire him for that. And I could kill him!"

Vladimir Kara-Murza's wife, Evgenia

Britain in 2020 had imposed sanctions on the presiding judge, for human rights violations. And London summoned the Russian ambassador to protest the `politically-motivated`conviction. `Criminalization of criticism of government action is a sign of weakness, not strength`, commented U.S. Ambassador Lynne Tracy, speaking alongside British Ambassador Deborah Bronnert who told reporters Kara-Murza had been punished for courageously speaking out against Russia`s Ukraine war.

 

`Discrediting`` the army is punishable by up to five years in prison, in reflection of Moscow having introduced sweeping wartime censorship laws, used to silence dissenting voices. Accordingly, spreading `deliberately false information` about the war can result in a 15-year jail sentence. Mr. Kara-Murza hit the jackpot. 

Vladimir Kara-Murza will serve his 25-year sentence at a penal colony   Shutterstock

A Heroine for Our Times

"[Russian President Vladimir] Putin is a killer his soldiers are fascists, 352 children have been killed [in Ukraine]."

"How many more children should die for you to stop?"

"May the murdered kids haunt your dreams tonight." 

"I do not plan to stop, I am not afraid despite the constant intimidation from the authorities."

"The next 10 generations won't be able to clean themselves from the shame of this fratricidal war."

"I'm ashamed that I allowed myself to tell lies from the television screen. Ashamed that I allowed Russians to be turned into zombies.We just silently watched this inhumane regime." 

"The [Mach] interrogation lasted for more than 14 hours, I wasn't allowed to get in touch with my family or friends, I was denied access to a lawyer."

"It was my anti-war decision. I made this decision by myself because I don't like Russia starting this invasion. It was really terrible." 

Marina Ovsyannikova, former state Russian TV journalist

Marina Ovsyannikova in a Moscow court room. AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko

She is defiant and courageous.  She will not be intimidated, she speaks what she believes and feels. She is a Russian hero, a formerly admired state journalist whose presence on television was familiar to all Russians. When the Russian 'special military operation' was still in its infancy, not yet a month after the February 24 invasion, she staged an on-air protest against the war campaign that Moscow forced on Ukraine. Following her first March protest she was briefly placed under arrest and fined. 

 

 

She then left Russia given a short contract with the German newspaper Die Welt. When she returned to Russia it was with full knowledge that she could be re-arrested. Her return was occasioned in early July, drawn to fight for access to her two children following her ex-husband having filed a lawsuit for sole custody. And nor was she determined to keep a low profile even at that. This Russian daughter of a Ukrainian father continued to stage public protests against Russia's conflict in Ukraine.

On August 10 police raided her home to arrest her. A day later, she was charged with spreading fake news about the military, an offense that carries up to ten years in prison under a special Russian law enacted in the wake of the invasion. Any criticism, even referencing the 'special military operation' as a conflict, or the use of the word 'war' could have a protester arrested and face years of incarceration. Even while Ms.Ovsyannikova sat in the glassed-in courtroom cage, she lifted a hand-lettered sign reading: "May the murdered kids haunt your dreams tonight."

 

A resident stands next to a house destroyed by a Russian military strike in Marhanets, a town in Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region on Aug. 10. (Press service of the National Police of Ukraine/Reuters)

She was ordered by the court to be placed under house arrest. To await a trial on charges of spreading false information about the Russian armed forces. Involved last month in a street protest where she held up a banner condemning Vladimir Putin as a killer, if convicted she could be penalized by ten years in prison. That being the case, the woman who is prepared to fight for the right to have access to her children may not see them again. In the mid-July protest there were two dolls lying at her feet, covered in red ink to simulate blood.

Her trial is set for October 9. A wide crackdown on anti-war protests across Russia to stamp out dissent has victimized many loyal Russians who just happen not to be loyal to Vladimir Putin. His violent incursion in Ukraine has appalled his critics, detractors and opponents. OVD-info, an independent Russian human rights watchdog, estimates that over 15,000 detentions have taken place since March, with up to 178 people facing court trials who could end up with lengthy prison sentences.

 

Former Russian state TV employee Marina Ovsyannikova  Reuters

Surviving Paris ISIL Terrorism

 

"I hope to be able to put the word 'victim' into the past."

"When things like this happen you have no repair possible. That's why you have justice, [even if] justice can't do everything."

"It puts an exclamation point at the end of it."

Arthur Dénouveaux, Bataclan massacre survivor

"The assassins, these terrorists, thought they were firing into the crowd, into a mass of people,"

"[Hearing the testimony of victims was] crucial to both their own healing and that of the nation."

"It wasn't a mass — these were individuals who had a life, who loved, had hopes and expectations."

Dominique Kielemoes, whose son bled to death at one of the cafes

Families of victims, journalists and lawyers attend the courthouse where the trial took place under heightened security on Wednesday. (Abdulmonam Eassa/Getty Images)

 Salah Abdeslam, chief suspect and the sole survivor among the 2015 terrorist attackers who massacred 130 people -- claiming their massacre was due to the influence of the Islamic State group -- has now been convicted of murder. His sentence was the most severe possible under French law; life in prison without possibility of parole. He denied being a murderer and pleaded forgiveness for his error in judgement.

A special terrorist court had been convened to try the case of the terrorist attack against the Bataclan theatre and a number of other attacks at cafes and a sport stadium in a coordinated night of terror and death in Paris. Abdeslam was found guilty of murder and attempted murder related to a terrorist enterprise. While he had contended a change of mind led him to abandon his explosives vest, in fact the court heard, it was a malfunction in the explosives vest that kept him from detonating it and slaughtering even greater numbers.

 

A courtroom sketch shows Abdeslam as the verdict was read at the courthouse on the Île de la Cité in Paris on Wednesday. (Elisabeth de Pourquery/France Televisions/Reuters)

 

A special French court Wednesday also found twenty men to be guilty of involvement in the Bataclan attack as well as on Paris cafes and France's national stadium. Presiding Judge Jean-Louis Peries read the verdicts surrounded by tight security, to close out the nine-month trial. Eighteen defendants aside from Abdeslam were given terrorist-related convictions.

Harrowing victim accounts were heard in the packed main chamber of the 13th Century Justice Palace aside from the testimony of Abdeslam, the sole survivor of the ten-member attack team that gave Paris a Friday night that would forever haunt the city. There were a dozen overflow rooms and they were fully packed. Of the other defendants six were accused of a direct role in the Mach 2015 attacks in Brussels, claimed as well by the Islamic State group.

 

A court sketch shows Salah Abdeslam standing (far R) alongside the other 13 defendants in court this week   Benoit PEYRUCQ/AFP

 

The remainder of the defendants faced accusations of assisting with logistics or transportation. The most conspicuous change related to that fateful day in March 2015 is armed officers patrolling public spaces constantly. Most of the attackers were born and raised in France and Belgium, which led to soul-searching by authorities while at the same time the lives of those who suffered losses or bore witness were forever transformed. Of the ten-member attacking team, six are presumed to have been killed in Syria or Iraq.

A French police officer stands guard in front of the Bataclan concert venue during a ceremony marking the fifth anniversary of the deadly terror attacks in Paris, on Nov. 13, 2020. Chief suspect Salah Abdeslam was convicted Wednesday of murder and other charges and sentenced to life in prison without parole. (Benoit Tessier/Reuters)

 

Eliminaing Russian Nuisances

"State organs of the government of the Russian Federation took the decision to liquidate Tornike Khangoshvili in Berlin."

"Khangashvili had given up the fight against the Russian Federation years before. He had not held a weapon in his hands since 2008."

"This was not an act of self-defence by Russia. This was and is nothing other than state terrorism."

Judge Olaf Arnoldi, Berlin court 

"This murder, ordered by a state, is a serious violation of German law and Germany's sovereignty."

"Acts like the murder in [Berlin's] Tiergarten park seriously burden relations between our countries."

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock

Russian President Putin | German Chancellor Olaf Scholz Photograph:( AFP )

 

Germany summoned the Russian ambassador to Germany, to inform him that two of the embassy's 101 diplomatic staff were to be expelled, following the trial and ruling by Justice Arnoldi when he sentenced Vadim Krasikov for the "especially serious" crime of murder of a former Chechen militant. The Russian agent dispatched to do the work of assassinating a man that President Vladimir Putin spoke of as a "bloody terrorist" was sentenced to life imprisonment for the 2019 act of "state terrorism".

The verdict, in the opinion of the Russian Embassy was "not objective and politically motivated". In 2019, Russian President Putin accused the murdered man of involvement in crimes that included the 2004 bombing if the Moscow metro, when ten people were killed. Georgian citizen Tornike Khangoshvili died of three shots from a Block pistol in August of 2019 in evident retaliation for his role fighting for Chechen separatists against Moscow in the 2000s.

Russia had supplied their hit man with false papers to use when travelling toward his destined target. His assignment began when Krasikov flew to Paris equipped with a false passport and from there journeyed on to Berlin In  his possession was thousands of euros in cash to enable his swift departure once his assignment had been completed.

As Khangoshvili cycled through the famed Berlin park on a beautiful sunny August day, Krasikov lethally shot his target, then hid behind shrubbery where he removed his clothing and his cap, replaced them with an innocuous tourist-type outfit, trimmed his beard, and prepared to saunter out and make good his escape from the scene. Unfortunately for his well-laid plans, there were witnesses.

 

The murderer's plan of escape was rent asunder when armed police within minutes surrounded him and others retrieved the discarded clothing, the murder weapon and brought Khangoshvili's bicycle out of the river. The arrested man now claims he is not Krasikov, but a construction engineer from St.Petersburg with the name of Vadim Sokolov. The lawyer for the arrested, tried and sentenced man claims the case against his client was built on conjecture, not proof. 

Russian assassins have a long history of murder by grotesque means of one kind or another to rid the nation's powerful and popular leader of irritating critics, of embarrassing turncoats, of those possessing state-incriminating evidence of more than nuisance value. From the use of military-grade chemical weapons to radioactive poisons, they leave their trademark, clumsy clues used to identify the perpetrators, linking them directly to the state apparatus assigned to eliminate state opponents.

Zelimkhan Khangoshvili's body was carried during his funeral in Duisi village in the Pankisi Gorge valley. - AP Photo/Zurab Tsertsvadze - August 2019

A Psychopath Is A Psychopath : Choices and Consequences

"There is no question he has a very highly developed concept of the rule-nature of the wrongfulness of this. The problem is his comprehension of the real, horrific impact that something like this would have on other people."

"Which I really, honestly, like, whatever I say in this evidence, I don't think he understands that."

"He is stuck at an early developmental stage of the development of moral judgement. He understands the rules, he can articulate the rules, he has a very sophisticated understanding of the rules."

"It was in that environment [shadowy corners of the Internet] that he conceived of what he ultimately did. He was saturated in horrible material ... it became for him one of his areas of real focus and so it was something he spent a lot of time looking at and thinking about and ruminating on and, I don't doubt, that in the absence of this sort of thing, this would not have happened."

"He doesn't have any emotional connection -- he doesn't experience remorse, he doesn't experience regret, but he also doesn't experience sadism. It doesn't feel to him like he is great now, it is just nothing."

"I hate to bring this up, but it really has the dissociative quality of someone who is playing a video game. That really is the flavour of how he completely and dispassionately talked about all of this. It is as abstract as killing people in a video game, which is a horrific thing for me."

Dr.Alexander Westphal, psychiatrist, autism specialist, Yale School of Medicine

"[If Minassian has a clear understanding of the physical consequences of his actions], what is it he doesn't get?" 

"I don't think that's the measure of it, though [that Minassian appears incapable of fully appreciating the impact of his actions]. If he kills a person who is alone in the world with no friends and no relatives and nobody to mourn his loss, it is nevertheless a murder."

"I don't know that to understand that you've committed murder and what its consequences are you have to envision how many people will be upset about it."

Justice Anne Molloy, Ontario Superior Court

 

At the ongoing trial for Alek Minassian, 28, diagnosed as a child with autism, considered to be high-functioning,  and never known to exhibit violent tendencies, but who was charged with ten counts of murder and 16 counts of attempted murder for having deliberately driven a rented van through a busy sidewalk in Toronto in 2018 for the express purpose of hitting as many people as he possibly could, the mental state attributed to him at the time of the atrocity is front and centre. 

The man freely agrees that his intention was to kill people, but  he has pleaded not guilty, insisting that his autism had been in the way of his complete understanding of the outcome of his actions and their seriousness. He is asking to be found not criminally responsible for having planned the carnage by renting a van and setting out to drive it onto a busy intersection on a beautiful day in Toronto when people were out enjoying the sun, doing their shopping, and generally appreciating life.

Dr. Westphal is a forensic psychiatrist who specializes in autism, a professor at Yale University. He was hired by Minassian's legal team for an expert opinion on the man's mental state which propelled him to attack defenceless people and target them for death. He holds that the autistic man had a distorted view of reality, to the degree that he suffered delusions, generally recognized as the basis for legal defence of not criminally responsible for reasons of mental disorder, similar to psychosis, while at the same time attesting that people with autism are by and large not violent.

Excerpts of video interviews that Dr.Westphal undertook with Minassian were shown to the court, where Minassian recounted his attack in detail, speaking matter-of-factly, referring to the initial group of those he hit with the vehicle at speed as "the first batch". Of another group of victims, he said "I hit them all in a line", referring further to some of his victims recalled as "an old lady", a "man crossing the road", seemingly detached, merely describing something he had witnessed, as though it was not he who was the cause of the destruction and bloodshed.

 

Alek Minassian, screengrab of the booking video. Photo by Toronto Police Service

Minassian expressed personal outrage only when it was suggested that he might be viewed as a "bully" for choosing to inflict such deadly violence on vulnerable people. A suggestion that caused him to erupt loudly with a heated disclaimer: "I'm not a bully. I hate bullies, how could anyone think that!" A statement that seems consistent with Dr. Westphal's assertion that though 28 years of age and a high-function person with autism, Minassian labours with a childlike conception of morality.

What appears not in dispute is that Alek Minassian immersed himself in the dark areas of the Internet where he became obsessed with school shooters and mass murderers, fringe sub-culture and black humour and death. Where delivering death is lightly regarded as an assault on humanity, and the deliverance of death seems to be a venerated topic. He was absorbed with online forums dedicated to the ideology of 'incel'; the 'involuntarily celibate', a marginal subculture of angry men furious about their incapacity to attract women's sexual interest.

"My personal opinion is that, I accept that autism spectrum disorder, including high-functioning autism spectrum disorder, is a significant mental disorder. I don’t believe it reaches the impact that psychosis does." 

"To get to the type of impact on the operating mind that I’m used to, you need to be psychotic. So I can’t get my head around how this would impact on a person’s operating mind to the person that would get them into Section 16 [the section of the Criminal Code that lays out the criteria for being found not criminally responsible]."

"[Based on the assessment done by himself and his team, Minassian is not a psychopath, which would include being manipulative and showing a] callous lack of empathy, [and does not have narcissistic personality disorder or depression]." 

Dr.John Bradford, professor of forensic psychiatry, (retired), head, Division of Forensic Psychiatry Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa.

"I would have probably still gone ahead with it and made sure I would have died instead of being arrested [on another attempt, and be more selective in targeting, seeking out female victims between the ages of 18 and 30, for] sensationalism [to add to his killing spree] narrative [making it more interesting and memorable]."

"[Female victims would be more] consistent [with his incel story, something he would get a] pat on the back [for from people on the Internet]."

"I’m not sure if I would or not [attempt an another act of mass murder if  he were to be released]. I would certainly think about it. I’m not sure if I would actually go through with it or not." 

"I would be hoping to achieve maybe just like another recognition of it or the fact that there is another kill count." 

"[A website tracks] score cards [for mass killers noting their] kill count versus their survivor count."

"Let’s say they kill 20 people and then there was 100 percent all 20 people he intended to kill died, that would be a very high score, especially because of the number of killings." 

"Now that would basically be the purpose of the kill count."

Alek MInassian, post-carnage interview with Toronto Police Service

 

Not Criminally Responsible? "I Just Floored the Pedal"

"[My client's] state of mind at the relevant time and in the days, weeks and months leading up to April 23, 2018, are expected to be the central issues at trial."
Boris Bytensky, lawyer, Alek Minassian pretrial material

"You look at the interview which happened reasonably quickly after the incident -- and he appears to be oriented as to time and space, he is not thought-disorganized, he doesn't appear to be suffering from a break with reality."
"He clearly had the ability to plan this and he had the ability to drive, which in itself indicates you're fairly well oriented. And his motivation -- although it is very difficult for us to understand it -- is not one that suggests he is suffering from voices in his head telling him to drive down the sidewalk."
"He was surprisingly lucid when he was answering questions. He does not fit in any of the classical understandings of having the most usual major mental disorder that people have when found to be NCR, which is schizophrenia."
"Of course, we don't know everything at this point. We don't know his psychological antecedents."
"What I saw there is somebody that is very angry at the world and that is not a defence in law."
"It's a responsible step to take to explore that option, because if indeed he is not criminally responsible he would not belong in the correctional system."
"I can't predict the future, but whatever facility he is in, whether it's a correctional one or a mental health one, he is going to be spending a long, long time there."
Ian Scott, Toronto defence lawyer, law professor, Western University

"It is a very snapshot moment in time [when the crime was being committed]. It is about what was going through the mind of the accused at a specific moment."
"The court has to weigh how that information relates temporally and otherwise to the mental state of the person at the time of the commission of the offence -- not how they may present at the time of the interview."
"It is a high threshold."
"The result of an NCR designation, at the end of the day, is not an acquittal. There is a very common public misunderstanding that the NCR designation is a get-out-of-jail-free card. That is not what happens."
Anita Szigeti, Toronto lawyer, president, Law and Mental Disorder Association

The 10 people killed in the attack were, from top left: Sohe Chung, 22, Renuka Amarasingha, 45, Andrea Bradden, 33, Dorothy Sewell, 80, Geraldine Brady, 83; from bottom left, Munir Najjar, 85, Anne Marie D'Amico, 30, Ji Hun Kim, 22, Betty Forsyth, 94, and Chul Min (Eddie) Kang, 45. (Ben Shannon/CBC)

He outright killed ten people, by ramming them with a lethal weapon, a rental van. Another sixteen people were injured in last year's van attack. Alek Minassian planned the attack, and meant to kill as many people as he could manage to. He was angry, angry with the world, angry with women who failed to appreciate his gentlemanly qualities, angry with the stupid men that those women who ignored him flocked to. He had online contacts with other men who were similarly angry that they too were unable to attract the attention of young women. They named themselves the 'incels'.

And they planned their revenge on a world where women chose men other than themselves, ignoble men, as opposed to the gentleman-like behaviour of the 'involuntary celibates' group like themselves. They would take their revenge by selecting a random group of victims to pay the price of their psychological agony created by a baffling biological selection system where women are attracted to certain types of men with typical masculine attributes, while leaving the intellectually choice and female-respecting men in high dudgeon, deprived of the emotional and physical comfort of partnerships.

Above all, stressed Alek Minassian, he was a 'gentleman'. That gentleman is a destroyer of lives. Deliberately targeting strangers to pacify his inner rage at being left behind. So he rented a van for the specific purpose of using it as a battering ram, targeting a busy street crowded with pedestrians. He is proud of his exploit, satisfied that he succeeded in what he set out to do. He would have preferred, however, to have taken a greater toll. Regret? certainly not! Any compunction over killing people? Perish the thought.

Alek Minassian, 25, of Richmond Hill, arrested after he drove a van into pedestrians.

LinkedIn

He had what he felt was a good reason for committing what society considers a shocking atrocity and what he feels is due vengeance on that society condemning him. And he may yet get the last laugh. In an interview with police directly after the dreadful event, he was clear in informing his interrogator that the result of the van-ramming pleased him greatly. "I feel like I accomplished my mission", he responded when asked how he felt afterward. Oh, and just incidentally, he is pleading "not guilty", and will so declare in February of 2020 when the trial is scheduled to commence.

As for guilty or not, trial judge Ontario Superior Court Justice Anne Molloy's pretrial ruling noted that the identity of Minassian as the van driver in the attack is not at issue, and nor has the man's lawyer disputed the admissibility into evidence at trial of his client's detailed confession to police. He killed and wanted to kill greater numbers, but is pleased with the outcome, and would do it all again given the opportunity. But guilty? Why would he be seen to be guilty of committing an act killing perfect strangers nominated by him to represent the very society that had so horribly harmed him?

Last week the video of his interrogation was released. It was seen and weighed by experts in the field of criminal law and psychiatry. Minassian had informed Detective Rob Thomas that the van attack was planned by him and committed as part of a larger, "incel rebellion". Video statements, personal history and psychiatric assessments -- according to Anita Szigeti who focuses on mental health and the law, and who spoke in a general scope -- can all be useful in guiding the court to decide whether the accused in such a case qualifies to be designated NCR.

It would be difficult to argue, using the same logic and viewing the calm statements from the accused, that anyone sufficiently aroused in anger and planning to exact revenge, can claim to be themselves not criminally responsible, since the state of rage rendered them incapable of viewing their intention as a grievous assault on public safety and security. All crimes of passion, then, could be absorbed into the NCR net. How high is that threshold?

And oh, that other little factoid, that accused held not criminally responsible are confined in psychiatric wards and hospitals, placed on drug protocols to control their mental illness, and invariably remain incarcerated for far shorter periods to protect the public, than those found guilty of crimes they commit and imprisoned. Even though psychiatrist reports deem them likely to re-offend should they not commit to their medications or other causes, they are given early release back into society. And society must live with that.

Minassian carried out the attack in a busy area of Yonge Street on April 23, 2018. (Aaron Vincent Elkaim/The Canadian Press)

Extending Human Rights to Jihadis Dedicated to Koranic Jihad Counselling to Mass Murder

"The question here is not actual prejudice, which in these kinds of circumstances is impossible to gauge, but prejudice to the due administration of justice flowing from the denial of a jury selection method which was in law properly invoked."
"[The jury selection process allows defendants to make decisions whether prospective jurors may be questioned on impartiality]."
"It was an error of law for the trial judge to refuse to exercise a discretion based on a view that a remedy not sought by Jaser would have better achieved his ends." 
"Here, one jury was selected for both appellants. In the circumstances of this case, as the jury was not properly constituted for Jaser, it cannot be considered to have been properly constituted for Esseghaier."
Ontario Court of Appeal

"The decision might be a bit hard for some people to get through, because there's a lot of technical language."

"But the bottom line is the fair jury selection process is a hallmark of Canadian justice. Mr. Jaser has been in jail since 2013, and still hasn't had a trial in front of a jury that was chosen legally, so we think this is the right result."

Megan Savard, one of Jaser's lawyers

"Fair jury selection is especially important in cases with saturation-level publicity and it can be hard to find impartial jurors in a highly publicized case like this one."

"So it is important to use the jury selection procedure created by Parliament. Jury selection is one of the few things that a defendant gets to choose around mode of trial and the courts are always protective of it."

Frank Addario, one of Jaser's lawyers

The Ontario Court of Appeal has ordered a new trial for Raed Jaser, left, and Chiheb Esseghaier. The men were found guilty on terror-related charges in connection with a plot to derail a passenger train. (John Mantha/Chris Young/The Canadian Press)

Found guilty at trial of terrorism in connection with a plot they decided upon out of many discussed between the two men -- to derail a Via Rail passenger train between Canada and the United States -- Raed Jaser and Chiheb Esseghaier have been the beneficiaries of the Ontario Court of Appeal finding the jury that had convicted them in 2015 had not been properly selected. It was the lawyers for Raed Jaser who had challenged the legality of the jury makeup, but his victory in being granted a new trial has been extended to his fellow jihadist Chiheb Esseghaier.

During the trial that convicted him of terrorism charges, Esseghaier scorned the Canadian justice system. It was only under Sharia law that Koranic justice could be meted out. And since the Koran extols the virtues of jihad and exhorts its faithful to embrace jihad, the man held that he was fully justified in plotting a terrorist attack with the co-defendant for the purpose of avenging Muslims in countries that the West had identified as harbouring threats to the West through a series of deadly attacks.

The trial that saw these men being found guilty on eight terror-related charges between them saw them sentenced to life in prison. Life in prison in Canada is nothing like a sentence of life imprisonment; these two would-be slaughterers of innocent life under Canadian law would have the opportunity of appearing before a parole board in 2023, a decade after they were arrested, eight years after being found guilty of terrorism, to plead for parole accelerating the opportunity of becoming free men to roam the streets of Toronto and Montreal to resume their psychotic fantasies of vengeance.

Accused Chiheb Esseghaier (L) and Accused Raed Jaser sit in the University Avenue courthouse in Toronto on Jan. 29, 2015. Sketch by Pam Davies / Toronto Sun/ Postmedia Network

Following their convictions on terrorism charges, through the lawyers representing their interests both challenged their convictions, Esseghaier continuing to represent himself after firing his court-appointed lawyers. According to the legal finding of the Ontario Court of Appeal recently brought down, the trial judge had erred in denying Jaser the method of jury selection he had stated was his preference, that prospective members of the jury be questioned on their impartiality.

Given that the news media were loud, front and centre for months on end about this case and the two  jihadis' actions and plots and the testimony of a undercover FBI agent who had convinced them that he was willing to aid and finance their plot as a sympathetic-to-the-cause fellow Muslim, no one could possibly among the general public, fail to have consumed the news where it was made clear that the case against the two was fairly ironclad, as terrorists.

The sham that questioning would result in, to elicit from each juror a self-professed capacity to remain neutral irrespective of having been aware of the details of the case through daily reportage, was dismissed out of hand by the presiding judge. He decided against having the jury pool appointing 'triers' who would question the other jurors as to their capacity to wipe their minds clean of impressions of guilt, to view the accused neutrally, to arrive at an opinion as to guilt or innocence.

The trial judge responded to Jaser's request for the jury to be chosen by rotating triers with the intention of excluding any jurors who professed an incapacity to be neutral when sitting in judgement at trial by stating he was not prepared to grant the request since the issue could be solved by the use of static triers, an alternative he imposed, and now rejected by the Court of Appeal, which has ordered new trials for both convicted terrorists.

A screen grab from court exhibit surveillance video of September 2012 for train bridge terror plot released Feb. 9, 2015. Court Exhibit

With the presentation of the same evidence that had been used in the original trial it is difficult to see what can be achieved in new trials other than taxpayer expense in a situation that can only logically result in a like finding of guilt on the part of both men. The recording where they discuss terror plots to be carried out to retaliate for military actions Canada took part in, in Muslim countries, the photographs showing the two examining the likeliest site they would use to derail a train full of people over an overpass for maximum carnage, will all be re-presented.

This represents yet another instance where Western justice bends over backward in an energetic, guilt-ridden, good-faith response to deadly jihadist violence against its own civilian communities to ensure that those who dedicate themselves to the annihilation of innocent lives are still deserving of 'justice' untrammelled by any vestige of due punishment accomplished by sidestepping the fine points of the law. 

The situation is right in line with 'progressive' values that punctiliously avoid identifying Islam with violence, Muslims with terrorism, profiling and common sense observations that terrorism in today's world is invariably linked to the grim pathology of Islamist ideology of conquest. This is uncivil, and wildly unacceptable to draw conclusions from reality to identify Muslims with terrorism. And so subterfuges and delicate maneuvering is undertaken to avoid giving offence while at the same time practising limp defence. 

Obsequious and nerve-rattling conciliation that only results in the Muslim world responding with contempt, recognizing the weakness of the tolerance that the West sees as its strength and the world of Islam identifies as fear and weak-willed responses from a non-Muslim world community ripe for conquest.

The appeal in the case centres on the way the first trial's jury was selected. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

Two Canadian Solitudes

"If you're a First Nations person, you live, you breathe this [racism]. As a First Nations mom, I live in fear. I would love for you to walk with me. I'd take a week off from work and I'd go incognito, maybe with a ponytail where nobody knows that I'm the chief."
"We'd walk around and go different places and you'd see clearly the fear -- not only physical but professional -- knowing that my [children]  are going to be viewed as less than ... as not worthy as their friends who are not First Nations."
Kim Jonathan, first vice-chief, Federation of Sovereign Indigenous Nations (FSIN)

Colten Boushie, 22, died on Aug. 9, 2016, after a shooting on a farmyard in the RM of Glenside. Facebook

"I see many posts from Aboriginals to fill the courtroom to show support for [Colten] Boushie. However, I haven't seen one request from local farmers, neighbours or family to show support for Mr. Stanley."
"As a farmer's wife, I believe what Gerald Stanley did was to protect his family, however, I think the courts will be pressured by Aboriginal presence to make an example of him. I think it should be posted somewhere, anywhere, that farmers support Gerald Stanley and the ability to defend our property from armed, drunk and violent trespassers, regardless of race."
Facebook member of Farmers with Firearms

Gerald Stanley Liam Richards / Saskatoon StarPhoenix

"Here's a situation where you've got some folks that are different from each other; there's a lot of unknown between each other and a lot of mistrust going both ways."
"It's a hot-point button that could drive more of a wedge between our communities."
"But if there's a not guilty [verdict], I'm scared how bad it could get."
John Lagimodiere, editor, publisher, Eagle Feather News

"This must stop."
"These comments are not only unacceptable, intolerant and a betrayal of the very values of and character of Saskatchewan, they're dangerous."
Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall

"This case should make all Canadians feel uncomfortable. It should knock them out of their comfort zone."
"The night Colten died, the RCMP searched his mother's trailer while at the same time telling her that her son had been killed."
"I'm white. There is a zero-percent chance that, had I been shot, the police would have searched my parents' house while notifying them I was dead."
Chris Murphy, Boushie family lawyer

The initial RCMP press release intimated that robbery might have been involved when on August 9, 2016, a resident of the Red Pheasant First Nations, 22-year-old Colten Boushie, out for a day of swimming and drinking, with four friends, drove onto the property of farmer Gerald Stanley close to the town of Biggar. The farmer and the group of friends in the vehicle faced off confrontationally and while the others fled at the sight of the farmer's rifle, Boushie, still sitting in the vehicle, was fatally shot.

Ultimately, charges of theft were never laid against Boushie's friends who escaped injury. And why the friends made their way to the private property of the farmer, and the confrontation ensued remains uncertain, though it was suggested they had a flat tire and were looking for help. Which is passing strange in that most men know how to change tires, a common enough though nuisance occurrence on the highway. Mr. Stanley exited his farmhouse, rifle in hand, to confront what was purportedly a vehicle full of inebriated young men.

Farmers in the area, supporting Mr. Stanley's reaction claim that it is every farm owner's right to protect property from trespassers. If people are merely trespassing, it's odd that farm owners feel entitled to confront them, lethal weapon in hand, however. Many of those farmers, eager to make a point, posted photographs of the cabs of their trucks and tractors, rifles installed where they could be readily accessed. No racism was involved here, they claim, but rather a reaction to a crime problem.

"I think that Canadians should be thinking about how is it that Canada is at this place right now in terms of race relations. Where does it come from? How did it manifest to be like this? And how do we move forward", provocatively wrote Robert Innes, an Indigenous studies professor at the University of Saskatchewan. All worthwhile reminders that both 'sides' in this conflicting situation have much to consider, and much to lose. Those 'sides' are wider than Saskatchewan only; the personal search of conscience and introspective search for answers must be undertaken nation-wide. On both sides.

According to the RCMP the complaints filed by the Boushie family against the federal police force are without substance; that they had been treated with respect, rather than as the family claimed, made to feel like criminals. The officers involved were cleared of wrongdoing by an internal investigation into the situation. But as a sociology professor at the University of Saskatchewan pointed out, whatever motivated the shooting, there is a wider discussion relating to the kind of racism foisted on Indigenous people.

The controversy following Mr. Boushie's death, stated Julie Kaye, "reflected so many people's lived experiences", citing proven allegations that police on occasion engage in "starlight tours", where Aboriginal people found intoxicated on the streets are often driven to remote, isolated locations and simply dropped off, to somehow make their way back to town, in sometimes inclement weather conditions. "It's the work right now of the country to take these instances and really understand the broader context", Professor Kaye stated.

Alvin Baptiste stands by the grave of his nephew, Colten Boushie. (Richard Agecoutay)

Jury selection for the trial of Gerald Stanley in the death of Colten Boushie has been taking place this week in Battleford, Saskatchewan. Pitting the Aboriginal community against the white, rural farming community. The trial of the fatal shooting of an unarmed young Indigenous man where his shooter is charged with second-degree murder has divided the community anew. Eagle Father News suggested its readers guess the potential trial outcome.

Thirty-one percent felt that the farmer would be found guilty of a lesser charge Another 26 percent felt he would be found not guilty of any charges. The hope among those who prefer to avoid any further, future confrontations capable of provoking violence, is that leaders of both communities would find a way to improve relations. Should Mr. Stanley be released of responsibility for the death of young Mr. Boushie, however, all bets are off.

That jury selection resulted in not one Indigenous person out of the available hundreds of potential jurors being chosen, leaving the jury comprised of only non-Aboriginal white people, This turn of events  hasn't given the Indigenous community comfort in the sense that justice will be done, even if the trial itself will answer enough questions to ensure that justice has been done, if there is no conviction.

Jade Tootoosis, the cousin of Colten Boushie, says she was disappointed to see Gerald Stanley's defence attorney challenge "every single visible Indigenous" person as a candidate for the jury in Stanley's trial. (Guy Quenneville/CBC)

Championing Islamic State

"Lone wolves, we salute you. IS is winning more ground and the lone wolves are hitting you in the heart of your lands."
"The real hero for hitting evil Canadian forces on their soil in retaliation for the Canadians supporting the Shiite gangs in Iraq [was Islamic convert Martin Couture-Rouleau who carried out vehicular murder of a Canadian Forces soldier in Quebec]. May Allah accept him."
"A Muslim brother is martyred by the Canadian police after he killed a Canadian Soldier in retaliation to Canada’s crimes in Iraq."
"In response to Harper's [Prime Minister Stephen Harper] policy of no restrictions on Canadian criminal forces in Iraq, Islamic State issues ... an order to lone wolves in Canada with 'no restrictions' on targets ... unlike prior restrictions to government and armed personnel only."
"If you are looking for someone to blame it is your government and elected prime minister."
"This dam [in Revelstoke, B.C.] supplies most of the west coast of the North American continent with power. The number of police officers in this town is between 20-30. Closest military base is 200 kilometres. Security is weak."
"There is a bridge — Nipigon River Bridge near a village Nipigon, Ont. It crosses a river and connects Eastern Canada with its West and it also carries a railroad. This bridge divides the country in the middle and its repair will take years. Security protection … zero."
"Our advice to supporters in the #US … carry your actions there … swiftly lone wolves activate all across #USA."
Othman Hamdan, Fort St. John, British Columbia -- Facebook

Othman Hamdan, on his way into a bail hearing in Fort St. John on July 15, 2016. He has been acquitted on all charges. (Brett Hyde/CBC)

"The word [used in a Facebook post] linguistically means: [the Islamic State] it is here to stay, it is here to remain. … It is a coined slogan specific only to the Islamic State."

"They have a vision, political and religious. The Islamic State wishes to remove Western hegemony, predominantly led by America from the Middle East … and replace them with governments that respect and implement Sharia law."

"[Lone-wolf attacks can refer to] an individual who is residing outside the Islamic State controlled territories around the globe."

"Anywhere outside, could be Canada, could be in the U.S. They are loyal to the Islamic State's cause, they are supportive of their religious or ideological or political motives. And they are willing to conduct operations to further the Islamic State's cause in the region of the Middle East."

RCMP Constable Tarek Mokdad, Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams

Facebook has removed these pages for inappropriate content. Othman Hamdan allegedly posted comments counselling murder and other acts of violence on these Facebook pages. (Facebook)

The trial of this resident of Canada -- who does not hold Canadian citizenship -- began in June of this year, and has only now concluded. Constable Mokdad was recognized by the court as an expert on Islamist-inspired terrorism and lone-wolf attacks. He had been responsible during the investigation of Othman Hamdan, of interpreting the Facebook account used by the man who pleaded not guilty to charges of encouraging the commission of murder, assault and mischief. The charges against this man also included inducing and instructing someone to proceed with an act of terrorism.

Clearly enough this man, now 35, of Palestinian descent who lived for years from 1999 in the United States and whose roommate, a Saudi national, had been taking flying lessons, came to the attention of American intelligence authorities. Attention that Hamdan claimed amounted to discriminatory harassment and which was responsible for leading him to leave the U.S. and travel to Canada where he declared himself a refugee. Amazingly, the Immigration and Refugee board accepted his application as a refugee in 2003, a year following his arrival in Canada.

Born in Abu Dhabi where his Palestinian parents then lived, at the age of 18 he moved to the United States. While there, he converted to Christianity. Evidently that religion failed to serve his faith needs, so he reconverted to Islam. If he lived in Pakistan or Afghanistan as a Sunni Muslim he would doubtless have faced the death penalty for leaving Islam, however temporarily. As an Arab Muslim he had ample opportunity to return to the place of his birth, to live anywhere in the Middle East, to take part in its slow and steady implosion. And he does have Jordanian citizenship.

He chose the world of the West, instead. Where he testified at his trial, that he imbibed in alcohol and made use of recreational soft drugs in the United States, searching for where his soul should reside.
His search obviously led him to respond to the personal appeal that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant held for him, in their carnage-ridden atrocities across Iraq and Syria, calling on him to champion their 'cause' of jihad, and so he did. Acting as a proxy mentor to any Muslims who might find solace in their grief over Western Islamophobia and interference in Arab/Muslim affairs.

His 2015 arrest resulted in the RCMP carefully combing through 85 Facebook posts he was responsible for, between 2014 and 2015 where he posted approving ISIL propaganda, urging Muslims to throw in their lot with the nauseating jihadis. His posts made much of the 'successes' of the jihadi caliphate advances, lauding their pure Islamist tenacity and penchant for barbarically inventive atrocities. Betraying his own obvious enchantment with their modus operandi.


What was obviously concerning to investigators was Hamdan's high praise for the 'lone wolf' attacks that had taken military lives in Quebec and on Parliament Hill. He went the extra mile on his posts to publish a how-to guide for others aspiring to carry out such hugely successful attacks in compliance with Islamic State's urging of Muslims abroad to get involved and prove their credentials as faithful of Islam. In pleading not guilty to all charges brought against him, Hamdan argued his posts were 'taken out of context' and clearly misunderstood as to their intent.

He was, after all, being totally facetious in his professions of admiration for Islamic State, and nor were his urgings to other Muslims to be taken seriously, for that was not their real intent. Rather, he used social media for the express purpose to "shine a light" on the very atrocities that so shocked the civilized world. Those atrocities were not, needless to say, those carried out by Islamic State, for he championed them. They were atrocities being 'carried out in the Middle East' in general, through the presence of the Western military.

His posts? sheer political satire. He was endorsing no one and no group, none at all. What this master of invention was doing was going out of his way to explain why events that were taking place were taking place. From his considerable store of knowledge of such events. His posts were meant by anyone intelligent enough to interpret them as they should have been, to highlight government reacting against citizens holding peaceful protests in the Middle East during the Arab Spring. Dontcha see?

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Bruce Butler did see. "These posts are difficult for the average Canadian to read or understand. This is because Mr. Hamdan expresses support for the actions of lone wolf terrorists and the reasons he gives for saluting these actions defy logic. The suggestion that it is rational or acceptable for someone to kill unsuspecting non-combatants in a civil setting is repugnant. However, the posts do not contain statements that could be considered active inducements and encouragement for readers to go and commit similar offences."

Great judicial wisdom, that.

Got that? Justice Butler has acquitted this man of all charges brought against him. Though offensive, to Canadians, it doesn’t mean the Fort St. John man had the intention of encouraging or inciting acts of murder, assault and mischief as 'alleged by the Crown'. He does remain under incarceration, however.

Canada Border Services official Randal Hyland stated that the agency had grounds to believe that Hamdan was inadmissible to remain in Canada as he obviously poses a security risk as well as the nature of his serious criminality. At a detention hearing, Mr. Hyland recommended that Hamdan remain in prison until such time as a full admissibility hearing can be held before the Refugee Board.
For his part, Hamdan will contest any decision to remove him from Canada.

The Irresistibly Romantic Lure of Jihad

"The Islamic State, a young adult couple who want to leave Canada to join this terrorist group and the discovery of a recipe to make a bomb with some of the necessary ingredients. In one sentence, that is what our case is about."
"In a binder found on the nightstand in the bedroom of the condo [an officer] found, on two pages, a recipe about how to make a bomb, written by hand by Mr. Jamali."
"This recipe, the evidence will show, was word for word a recipe published by al-Qaeda [in one of their magazines]."
Federal prosecutor Lyne Decarie, Montreal

Sabrine Djermane and El Mahdi Jamali were 19 and 18 years old respectively when they were charged in April 2015. (Radio-Canada)

Crown prosecutor  Decarie spoke of a propaganda video to be addressed by the last of the witnesses, an expert on Syria, Islamic State and its fascist ideology, that was produced to incite Muslims in Canada to commit as faithful in Islam to one of two choices: pack a bag, buy a plane ticket and join Islamic State abroad -- alternatively prepare explosives, sharpen knives, use vehicles, whatever it takes to perpetrate an attack right where they live; in this instance, Canada.

"The Crown intends to demonstrate that El Mahdi Jamali and Sabrine Djermane responded to this call", Decarie informed the jury at this trial on terrorism expected to take ten weeks before it winds up with a jury declaration of innocent or guilty.  The accused pair are young Montrealers; El Mahdi Jamli and Sabrine Djermane, now 20 and 21 respectively, both of whom have pleaded not guilty to the charges brought against them.

These charges are explosive in their nature, four in number: attempting to leave Canada to commit a terror act abroad; possession of an explosive substance; facilitating a terrorist act; and committing an act under the direction or for the profit of a terrorist organization. The Crown prosecutor has named as witnesses, 31 members of the police along with expert and civilian witnesses whom her legal team plans to call upon throughout the extended trial.

Police are set to give testimony over their seizures taken from the condo that the two accused share. The home of Jamali's parents also  yielded evidence, in the form of a receipt for passports, a new suitcase with new, tagged clothing, along with a plane ticket complete with planned May departure date. A number of other documents were also taken as evidence. RCMP agents as well, discovered a bag containing bomb-making equipment.

When they returned again in the company of an explosives expert other incriminating evidence was unearthed, along with a list alleged to have been written by Djermane. Their cellphones, three computers and a tablet were taken and analyzed in RCMP laboratories. Their Facebook pages were of interest to the experts tasked with going through them to flag conversations of interest, messages and links they had posted.

The two accused cast themselves by pleading not guilty, as innocents who had no idea that the materials they had amassed, the ideology they appeared connected to through Islamist zeal, and the motivational effect of the video extolling the virtues inherent in violent jihad had nothing whatever to do with them.  If it had not been for the concern expressed by an as-yet unidentified individual who alerted police, according to Kevin Rouleau, the first witness and principal RCMP investigator on the case, their activities would have gone undetected.

Sabrine Djermane and El Mahdi Jamali, shown here in a courtroom sketch during jury selection, are on trial for terrorism-related offences. (Radio-Canada)

It was, in fact, by Jamali's own hand, posting the iconic black flag of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant on his Facebook account, that took the initial attention of the person who contacted the RCMP. Officer Rouleau was given the initial suspicious information about the pair on April 10, 2015, meeting soon afterward with the complainant, then going on to interview the suspects.