 The suspected ring-leader of the failed "Toronto 18" bomb plot, aimed at provoking a Canadian withdrawal from Afghanistan, has been sentence to life in prison. Zakaria Amara, a Jordanian-born Canadian citizen, was sentenced on Monday "for his role in a terrorist plot to bomb Toronto", the public prosecution service of Canada said in a statement. He was also sentenced to nine years "for his participation in a terrorist group," to be served concurrently. The sentence is the stiffest punishment imposed in the conspiracy and under Canada's anti-terrorism laws, which parliament passed in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001. But Amara may be eligible for parole in less than seven years after having already served time in prison awaiting trial. Amara had pleaded guilty to involvement in the Toronto 18 plot to set off bombs outside Toronto's stock exchange, the country's spy agency and a military base. Judge Bruce Durno, who read out the sentence, said that if the plot been successful it would have been the most horrific crime in Canada's history. "What this case revealed was spine-chilling,'' Durno said. "Zakaria Amara did not just commit a criminal offence. He committed a terrorist offence that would have had catastrophic and fatal consequences." After the judge read his sentencing Amara addressed him saying "I just want to reassure you that the promises I made [to rehabilitate], I'll do my best." Michael Lacy, Amara's defence lawyer, said the defence was disappointed with the sentence in view of Amara's "genuine expressions of remorse and in light of his denunciation of the terrorist activity". He said they had not decided whether to appeal. The 2006 arrests of Amara and 17 other people made international headlines and heightened fears in Canada, where many people thought their country was relatively immune from attacks. Prosecutors said Amara planned to rent trucks, pack them with explosives and detonate them via remote control. Police found he used a public library computer to conduct searches on bomb-making and the chemicals needed for explosives. A bomb-making manual, circuit boards, and a device that could trigger an explosion via a cell phone were found in his home. Amara had tried to buy what he believed was three tons of ammonium nitrate from undercover police officers, who had switched it with an inert substance. His personal computer also had recordings of Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader. Also sentenced on Monday was Saad Gaya, one of Amara's suspected co-conspirators, who was given 12 years in prison, minus seven-and-a-half years credit for pre-trial custody. Since the arrest of the Toronto 18, four have now pleaded guilty and one
was convicted. Charges were stayed or dropped against seven people. One man's trial began last week and five others face trial in March. Al Jazeera 
 Mehmet Ali Agca, the man who tried to kill Pope John Paul II in 1981, has been released from a Turkish prison, nearly 30 years after the assassination attempt in St Peter's Square in Rome. Agca waved to journalists on Monday as he left the prison in Ankara, the Turkish capital, where he had served out a separate sentence for crimes committed in Turkey. On his release, he was reportedly taken to be assessed for compulsory military service, although a 2006 military hospital report said he was not fit to serve because of a "severe anti-social personality disorder". "I am expecting him to be released after the military hospital check-up," said Gokay Gultekin, Agca's lawyer. Agca's lawyers said earlier that the military authorities still considered him to be a draft dodger and required him to undergo the examination. There have been long-standing questions about the 52-year-old's mental health based on his frequent outbursts and claims that he was the messiah. Following his release from prison, Agca issued a handwritten statement through his lawyers in which he claimed the world would end "this century". "I proclaim the end of the world. All the world will be destroyed in this century. Every human being will die in this century," he said in his statement. "The Gospel is full of mistakes," he said, apparently referring to the Christian religious texts. "I will write the perfect Gospel." He signed the paper as "The Christ eternal, Mehmet Ali Agca". Agca served 19 years in an Italian prison for his attack on the pope, before being pardoned on the pontiff's initiative in 2000. But he was extradited to serve a sentence in his home country for other crimes, including the 1979 murder of a newspaper editor. The pope, who died in 2005, met with Agca in Italy's Rebibbia prison in 1983 and forgave him for the attack.
Agca's motives for shooting and wounding the pope remain a mystery. Some people believe he was working for Soviet-era eastern European security services alarmed by the Polish pontiff's fierce opposition to communism. In a statement issued last week, Agca said he would answer questions on the attack in the next few weeks, including whether the Soviet and Bulgarian governments were involved. Al Jazeera
 A US appeals court confirmed today a life sentence handed down on Zacarias Moussoui, a French national, for complicity in the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. The ruling upheld a sentence passed by a federal court in Virginia in May 2006 after Moussoui pleaded guilty to conspiracy in the hijackings of the airliners used in the attacks in New York and Washington. Moussoui, who later recanted his testimony only to claim he was part of another Al-Qaeda plot, is serving a life sentence at a maximum security prison in Colorado. News.Com
 These are the kinds of laws that the Organization of the Islamic Conference is working to bring to the West. "Egypt court upholds 4-year sentence for blogger," from Reuters, December 22: CAIRO (Reuters) - An Egyptian court confirmed the four-year jail sentence imposed on an Egyptian student blogger for posting writings critical of Islam and the government, the state news agency MENA said. Blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman, then 22, was arrested in 2006 and charged with publishing opinions aimed at disturbing public order, insulting the head of state and defaming Islam. He was expelled from al-Azhar University, Egypt's most prestigious seat of Islamic learning. Suleiman will spend only one year in jail as he has already spent three years in detention since his arrest.... With thanks to JihadWatch
 The family of the “veil martyr” – an Egyptian woman stabbed to death in a Dresden court room in July – is suing a judge and court president for failing to protect her, a public prosecutor confirmed on Saturday.
Senior Dresden public prosecutor Christian Avenarius said that a lawyer for the dead woman’s husband had begun legal action six weeks ago.
Last week, Alex Wiens, 28, was sentenced to life imprisonment for stabbing to death Marwa El-Sherbini in a Dresden court room.
According to a Cairo newspaper report, Sherbini’s family is accusing the judge who was presiding over the court, and the court’s president, of failing to arrange proper security, thereby making them accessories to her death.
Despite knowledge of Wiens’ “criminal intent” there had been no special security arranged, one of the family’s lawyers said.
The family is also in discussion with the state of Saxony over compensation, the lawyer said.
(more)
Source: The Local (English)
 A CANADIAN man was sentenced today to 14 years in prison for his role in a foiled plot to bomb the Toronto Stock Exchange, a military base and Canada's spy agency headquarters. Saad Khalid is the second of the so-called "Toronto 18" to be sentenced for the planned attacks, which were to have been carried out by stuffing rented vans with explosives. The 18 suspects were arrested during a police sting operation in 2006. The scheme aimed to pressure Canada to withdraw from Afghanistan. Khalid will serve only seven years in prison, as under Canadian rules he will receive double credit for time spent in jail awaiting trial. In September 2008, one of Khalid's co-accused, a minor, was convicted of "terrorist activity". He was sentenced to two and a half years in jail but was immediately released as he had spent three years in custody awaiting trial. Nine other alleged accomplices remain in prison awaiting trial, while seven others were released after charges were dropped. Khalid was among 14 adults and four minors charged after allegedly trying to buy three tonnes of the bomb-making ingredient ammonium nitrate from undercover police officers. The officers had replaced the ammonium nitrate with an inert substance. Trials for the remaining adult defendants are expected to begin next year. Source: The Australian
 By ABE SELIG Fourteen members of the self-proclaimed "Barbarians" gang will be retried in Paris for their role in the killing of Ilan Halimi, a French-Jewish cell phone salesman who was kidnapped, tortured and found dying near a railroad track south of Paris in February 2006.
All 27 members of the gang were sentenced in the case on Friday, but in a swift turn-around, the office of the prosecutor, Jean-Claude Marin, agreed to ask the Court of Appeals to seek longer sentences than those originally handed out, after Justice Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie called some of the sentences too lenient. The gang's leader, a 28 year-old French national born to immigrants from the Ivory Coast named Youssouf Fofana, however, will not be among those facing a retrial. Fofana, who was the only defendant convicted of murder, was sentenced to a maximum sentence of life in prison on Friday, without the possibility of parole for 22 years. Two of Fofana's accomplices also received heavy sentences of 15 and 18 years behind bars, but many of the defendants were given lighter terms and two were acquitted altogether. Alliot-Marie and the prosecutor's calls for a retrial were in part a response to criticism from the Halimi family's lawyer and a number of French Jewish associations, which had criticized some of the sentences as too light, given the sheer brutality and anti-Semitic nature of the crime. Fofana had been quoted in 2006 as saying he wanted to kidnap a Jew because "they had money", and when the trial began at the end of April, Fofana yelled "Alla hu akbar!" upon entering the courtroom, before giving his name during formal questioning as "Arabs African, Salafist revolt, barbarian army". The trial itself also brought tensions between French Jews and Muslims to the hilt, and saw the outbreak of street brawls and other sporadic acts of violence between the two groups during the two-months of proceedings. While many within the Parisian Jewish community were encouraged by the announcement of a retrial - hundreds of demonstrators marched through Paris on Monday night, carrying portraits of Halimi and shouting, "Justice for Ilan!" Some French jurists protested the move, accusing Alliot-Marie of bowing to political pressure. Halimi was 23 years old when he disappeared in 2006, after going on a date with a girl he had met at his workplace. The girl, who was 17 at the time, led Halimi to an empty apartment where he was attacked by Fofana and his accomplices. Throughout 24 days of brutal torture, Halimi was kept bound to a chair in the basement while the gang tried to extort a ransom of 450,000 euros from his family. When it became apparent that the family could not pay, Fofana doused Halimi in alcohol, stabbed him, set him on fire and dumped his naked body by a railway track. Halimi died on his way to hospital. Source: Jerusalem Post Youssouf Fofana
Latest recipients of The Face of Evil Award
Jailed Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi has appealed against her eight-year sentence for spying against Iran, the official IRNA news agency said on Tuesday. Saberi, 31, was sentenced on Saturday on charges of spying for the United States, in a verdict that could complicate Washington's efforts towards reconciliation with the Islamic Republic after three decades of mutual mistrust."Saberi has appealed and I hope that the appeal court will change the verdict," IRNA quoted judiciary spokesman Alireza Jamshidi as saying. Source: Ynet
 KUWAIT'S criminal court sentenced an Australian mother of Arab origin to two years in jail for allegedly insulting the emir, her lawyer said. "I will appeal the verdict tomorrow," lawyer Falah al-Hajraf said."My client has denied the charge during the trial and insisted she committed no wrongdoing."Nasra al-Shimmari, 43, was arrested at Kuwait airport in December after she allegedly insulted Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah, during a quarrel between her children and husband and an airport employee.She has been in jail since her arrest along with two of the couple's seven children. Her husband and the other five children were not allowed into the oil-rich Gulf state. Mr Hajraf said that police has not yet pressed charges against Shimmari's two sons, in their early 20s, and "it looks as if the case is over." The Shimmary family obtained Australian citizenship a few years ago. Previously they lived in Kuwait among the some 100,000 bidoons, or stateless Arabs. Bidoons have no right to work, obtain a birth certificate for their babies or even get their marriage certificate attested. According to the Government, bidoons in Kuwait number 70,000, however rights groups place the number at 120,000.
 |
|
|
Copyright Muslims Against Sharia 2008. All rights reserved.
E-mail: info AT ReformIslam.org
|
|
|
The suspected ring-leader of the failed "Toronto 18" bomb plot, aimed at provoking a Canadian withdrawal from Afghanistan, has been sentence to life in prison. 
Posts
