Officials allege beheading plot

Officials allege beheading plot
Suspects are accused of targeting Harper.

Published Wednesday, June 7, 2006

BRAMPTON, Ontario (AP) - Prosecutors have accused some of the 17 Muslim terror suspects arrested in Canada of plotting to storm Parliament, take hostages and behead the prime minister unless Canada withdrew its troops from Afghanistan, an attorney for one of the suspects said.

Authorities further allege the suspect, Steven Vikash Chand, planned to take over media outlets, including Canadian Broadcasting Corp., his attorney said yesterday after a brief hearing at the Ontario Court of Justice outside Toronto.

Specifics of the charges against the other suspects were not released, but Chand’s lawyer, Gary Batasar, asked that the allegations against his client be read in court. He told The Associated Press later that others face similar accusations but did not say who or how many.

An eight-page prosecution document summarizing the charges against all the suspects was not read in open court or distributed to the media, making it difficult to assess the sophistication of the alleged plot or its progress. The 17 have also been accused of plotting bombings.

The purported plot to take political leaders hostage and behead them if Muslim prisoners were not freed and Canada did not pull its 2,300 troops out of Afghanistan added a chilling dimension to a case that led U.S. authorities to toughen security along the border and unsettled Canada’s large Muslim community.

The arrests have also stunned many Canadians, who have not experienced such a major anti-terrorism case since security measures were intensified after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "It’s breathtaking that this is going on in Canada," International Trade Minister David Emerson told the CBC.

Other defense attorneys declined to discuss the detailed charges. Batasar said the reason he disclosed part of the allegations against his client was because Chand professes his innocence.

"There’s an allegation apparently that my client personally indicated that he wanted to behead the prime minister of Canada," Batasar said. "It’s a very serious allegation. My client has said nothing about that."

In Ottawa, Prime Minister Stephen Harper appeared to take the alleged beheading threat in stride. "I can live with these threats as long as they’re not from my caucus," he joked.

Police say they expect more arrests, and intelligence officers are investigating whether 12 adults and five juveniles arrested over the weekend had any ties to Islamic terror cells in the United States and five nations in Europe and Asia.

Police say there is no evidence the suspect group had ties to al-Qaida but describe its members as sympathetic to al-Qaida’s violent jihadist ideology. Officials are concerned that many of the 17 suspects are young and became radicalized in a short amount of time.

Chand, a 25-year-old restaurant worker from Toronto, was one of 15 suspects who made brief court appearances yesterday. They were held behind a glass enclosure, brought in as groups of four or five and chained together in ankle shackles and handcuffs.

Formal bail hearings for the suspects were postponed until at least Monday.

The Ontario Court of Justice had said earlier the suspects faced charges including participating in a terrorist group, importing weapons and planning a bombing.

Lawyers and family members said they were being given too little information about the case and charged that the suspects’ rights were not being respected.

Rocco Galati, a lawyer for suspect Ahmad Mustafa Ghany, 21, told the judge that his client’s constitutional rights had been violated because he was only able to interview him in the presence of an armed guard. Donald McLeod, a lawyer for Jahmaal James, 23, complained he was only allowed to speak to his client through Plexiglas and was barred from having private discussions with him.

Arif Raza, who represents Saad Khalid, 19, said he had not been allowed to speak to his client at all and was not even allowed to slip him his business card so that Khalid could call him from jail.

The U.S. Border Patrol, meanwhile, put agents on high alert along the 4,000-mile border and stepped up inspections of traffic from Canada.

Some U.S. commentators and politicians have accused Canada of having a lax immigration policy and suggested building a fence along the border. But Harper told Parliament yesterday most Americans admire Canada for "our shared concern about the security of this continent."

Officials announced the arrests Saturday, saying the sweep was ordered after the group acquired 3 tons of ammonium nitrate, which can be mixed with fuel oil to make a powerful explosive. One-third that amount was used in the deadly bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995.