May 13, 2008 - No. 77
Justice for the Toronto18!
• Justice for
the Toronto 18!
• A Day-Long Vigil to End a Common Canadian
Form of Torture, and to
Release Three Young Men from Two Years of Enforced Isolation
• Hands Off Steve Chand!
• Powerful Demonstration in Brampton in
Support of the Toronto 18 -- We Are One Humanity!
• Feels Like June 2nd All Over Again
- Toronto18.com
For Your Information
• The Case of
the Toronto 18
United States
• Mistrial Is
Declared for Six Men in Sears Tower Terror Case
SUPPLEMENT
• Sacrificing
Rights in the War on Terror: The
José Padilla Case
Justice for the Toronto 18!
In early June 2006, in an action involving
400 heavily armed police officers led by the RCMP, thirteen men and
five under aged youth
from the Greater Toronto Area were arrested and charged with being a
"home-grown terrorist cell." Alarmist propaganda filled the airwaves,
accusing them of having plans to bomb various sites in
Toronto, behead the prime minister and so on.
Of the original eighteen men and youth who
were arrested, ten remain in prison. Three of the accused have been
kept in solitary confinement since their arrest for more than nineteen
months; seven are kept in
detention without bail; one youth is awaiting trial, three youth have
had their charges stayed, and four of the adult suspects, including the
so-called ring leader, had their charges dropped
on April 16 this year.
The arrests of the "Toronto 18," the unjustified
attacks on their legal and civil rights, the intimidation of their
families and friends, are all part of a new regime of state terror
which hangs over the society. TML calls on the working class
and people to defend
the rights of all by vigorously supporting the victims
and the families targeted by this cowardly
state-organized racist attack and to support their demands for justice.
In addition, TML calls on everyone to support the stands and
just demands of organizations like the Presumption of Innocence
Coalition, Canadian Council on American-Islamic
Relations (CAIR-CAN) in partnership with the Canadian Arab Federation
(CAF), Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC), and others for an end to
crimes committed against these men in the name of "anti-terrorism" in
violation of all norms of civilized and humane behaviour.
It will be remembered that in 2003, twenty-three Muslim
men, mostly foreign students, were arrested and jailed for several
months in Toronto in an armed sweep called "Project Thread" that
received widespread international attention and that, according to at
least one government official, had
uncovered "an Al-Qaeda sleeper cell" in Canada. These allegations
proved to be false. Not one of the men was ever formally charged, let
alone convicted, of committing a crime. Yet most were deported from
Canada
and had their lives turned up-side down when they returned to their
home countries. The Canadian government has never issued an apology or
compensated the victims for the wrongs
committed against them, nor reinstated their status in Canada. In other
words, the Canadian state and its institutions have established a modus operandi whereby they can
act with impunity in the name of protecting national security. What
kind of national security are they defending in which no one is secure?
It is important to note that unlike the victims of
Project Thread, or those being persecuted under the brutal security
certificate regime, all the victims in the case of the Toronto 18 are
citizens of Canada, most of them born here. Who is next?
There is considerable evidence to suggest that whatever
the 18 Canadians did was in fact organized by paid agents of the CSIS.
These agents and the CSIS should be charged, not the people they
entrapped.
Those responsible for carrying out these crimes, from
the Prime Minister, the Minister of Public Safety, the CSIS and RCMP
and
their paid agents, and any others involved should be held accountable.
It is not acceptable to put people in jail under false allegations for
close to two years, keep them in solitary confinement, subject them to
all kinds of abuse, and then stay charges against some without setting
all of them free, while no-one is held accountable and punished. When
those who are
entrusted with the well-being of all the Canadian people take the law
into their own hands and commit crimes against this or that section of
the people, they must be held accountable. The working class and people
of Canada who constitute the
vast majority of the people of this land must demand justice for the
Toronto 18 and defend the rights of all who are the victims of
state-terror and other crimes!
Justice for the Toronto 18!
Punish those responsible for this crime against the Canadian people!
Let us take a bold step in defence of the rights of all!
No to impunity!
A Day-Long Vigil to End a Common Canadian Form of
Torture, and to Release Three Young Men from
Two Years of Enforced Isolation
"Because of the tremendous psychological impact of long
periods of solitary confinement, it would be unacceptable in our
society to condemn a person to close or solitary confinement for the
entire period of a significant term of imprisonment. For example, the
imposition of a year or more of solitary confinement
could probably not withstand a Charter challenge that it constituted
cruel and unusual punishment." - Supreme Court of Canada, R. vs.
Shubley, 1990
On June 2, 2006, Fahim Ahmad, Zakaria Amara, and
Mohammad Dirie, three young Canadian Muslim men, were arrested and
charged with a variety of alleged offences, for which they have yet to
be tried (part of the rapidly fraying "Toronto 18" case which, now, is
the so-called Toronto 11). They
were immediately placed in solitary confinement and remain there to
this day, almost two full years later. The Supreme Court of Canada says
one year of solitary would likely constitute cruel and unusual
punishment. In this case, these young men have been in solitary
confinement twice that long, with no end in
sight.
There is nothing constructive about solitary
confinement. It is a form of punishment which, in this case, throws out
the idea that one is presumed innocent. Why are these young men being
punished? Human rights groups around the world have long pointed out
that solitary confinement, especially prolonged
periods of isolation, fits within the definition of torture in several
international human rights treaties.
For example, the U.N. Convention Against Torture
defines torture as any state-sanctioned act "by which severe pain or
suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a
person" for information, punishment, intimidation, or for a reason
based on discrimination.
Join us for all or part of the day as we demand of the
Ontario government that the enforced isolation against these young men
be ended, that they be granted access to regular and ongoing human
contact, access to the yard, reading material, and other basics that
fit within the guidelines for the standards
of treatment of detainees.
To sign up for a block of time or to help out, contact:
Toronto Action for Social Change
(416) 651-5800
tasc@web.ca
Co-sponsored by Stop Canadian Involvement in Torture,
the Presumption of Innocence Project
Hands Off Steve Chand!
The following is an urgent
appeal from friends and family of the Toronto 18 in the face of the
abuse of Steve Chand, one of the Toronto 18 at Maplehurst Correctional
Services:
Dear Friends, Hello and Assalamu Alaikum,
We need your assistance in bringing public attention to
bear on the recent inhumane treatment of Steven Chand and the continued
denigration of the religious rights and freedoms of the Muslim
detainees in the "Toronto 18" matter. Steve has been punished simply
for covering the toilet in his cell, while offering
his prayers.
The guys are detained in very small cells and, as a
result, are forced to pray next to the toilet, something that would
cause concern to people of all faiths. Therefore, prior to praying,
they usually draw a bed sheet across the toilet.
Steve did the same yesterday (Sunday, May 4). However,
this time around, a guard slammed the door to his cell and ordered him
to remove the sheet. Steve was unable to break his prayer right away
since he was in the middle of it. The guard barged into Steve's cell to
remove the sheet and dragged
him to the segregation cell for disobeying orders. This cell has faeces
on the wall, the stench of urine, and is commonly used to detain
troublesome or mentally challenged inmates. Steve will spend the next
ten days in these conditions.
This is an example of the kind of treatment these guys
have experienced over the past two years. We need your help to bring
this continued outrage to public attention:
1. Please call and email the Superintendent of the Maple
Hurst detention facility where Steve is detained, demanding that he be
removed from the segregation cell and that in the future the religious
rights of the guys be respected.
Superintendant at Maplehurst Correctional Services
Superintendant Doug Dalgleish
MapleHurst Correctional Complex
Milton, Ontario
Phone: (905) 878-8141
Fax: (905) 878-5363
E-mail: doug.dalgleish@ontario.ca
2. If you email the Superintendent, please CC the
Minister of Correctional Services, at: rbartolucci.mpp@liberal.ola.org,
the Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister of Community Safety and
Correctional Services, at dlevac.mpp@liberal.ola.org AND
ynaqvi.mpp@liberal.ola.org.
If you call the Superintendent, please also call the
Minister Rick Bartolucci (416-325-0408), and two Parliamentary
Assistants; Yasir Naqvi (613-722-6414) and Dave Levac (416-325-4925)
As a born and raised Canadian, who believes in the
freedom and equality of all people, I am seriously appalled at the way
a young Canadian's life can be portrayed as a scary troubling demon,
i.e. an Al Qaeda inspired terrorist based on scant evidence, out of
context statements, one's religiosity and
even one's political views. Like any other Canadian, now I patiently
await to see if justice will see the light of day given the cloud
hanging over the head of the accused and their families as a result of
the biased release of information, reported without question, by the
media who, for the most part, only seem interested
in sensationalism and pushing their "product." In all fairness, I must
add that the job of journalists is made all the more difficult as a
result of the publication ban and I must also note that some have tried
to give voice to the accused and bring some balance. I hope and pray
that this will increase as the cases progress
so that the accused can get their day in court for fair, transparent
and expeditious trials and not trial by media.
Powerful Demonstration in Brampton in Support of the
Rights of theToronto 18 -- We Are One Humanity!
Several hundred people
turned out at the courthouse in Brampton,
Ontario from April 22 to
25 to demand justice for the
young men and boys -- the so-called Toronto
18 -- arrested two years ago on terrorism charges in a police sting
operation. The
court was holding the bail hearing of one of the
young men,
who was an 18 year old student when arrested and who has been in
custody ever
since, including 14 months in solitary confinement.
The courtroom was filled
with family members of the young man and with supporters who had been
called on
by the family to show support. So many people came out to support the
request
for bail that another courtroom with a video link had to be arranged,
and this
extra room was also filled to capacity, with many forced to wait
outside. The
family had asked for people to come to court because a publication ban
imposed
on the entire case prevents people from seeing the true nature of the
prosecution or from hearing the innocent explanations of the defendants
in any
other way. The publication ban has allowed the politicians and media to
create
hysteria in the society about "home-grown terrorists" while
preventing the young men from defending themselves in public.
On the morning of the first
day of the bail hearing, three hundred people demonstrated outside the
courthouse, including busloads of students from the University
of Toronto, Ryerson University
and McMaster
University.
The students and community members demonstrating outside carried signs
and
shouted slogans saying: "An Injury to One is an Injury to All!" "Defend
Civil Liberties!" "Justice Delayed is Justice Denied!" Many of
the students confirmed that they were in attendance in support of their
fellow
student, who had been denied his basic rights and humanity. Some Muslim
students expressed their need to come together and defend themselves
against
these state attacks. One young woman from McMaster University
spoke of her incredulity at the fact that as the bus was leaving
campus, a
police sergeant demanded entrance onto the bus, where he patronizingly
admonished everyone to "be nice." "Why would he think we, I am
not nice," she asked, continuing, "Is it because we are Muslim,
because I wear a hijab?" She affirmed that only together can the
community
protect its rights.
Mathew Behrens, an activist
in the campaign against secret trials and security certificates,
addressed the
crowd, affirming that everyone was gathered in support of the accused
and his
right to bail. He spoke of the need to defend the presumption of
innocence
principle, while denouncing the government and its security agencies
for
targeting Muslims. He said that the presumption of innocence is the
right of
every accused person and that the previous cases of groundless
accusations by
security agencies show why this is an essential right. He compared the
case of
the Toronto
18
to the "Project Thread" case and the Arar case, where security
agencies used the flimsiest of so-called evidence to persecute innocent
Muslim
men.
Next, a young
representative from the Ryerson Student Union declared, "An attack on
one
is an attack on all!" She emphasized the determination of Ryerson
students
to stand up against all forms of racism, especially Islamaphobic
attacks by the
state, as part of the commitment to making schools safe for everyone
and
ensuring their right to education. She pointed out that almost all the
accused
men are students who are also being denied the right to an education by
the
onerous bail regime and their unfair detention.
A spokesperson for the
Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) reiterated the demand for due
process for
the accused youth and students. She said the CFS was unanimous in its
defence
of civil liberties for the Toronto
18 and in support of the rule of law, outlining that further
discussions are
being held by the organization so that further action on this issue can
be
taken.
A representative from the
Canadian Peace Alliance linked the case of the Toronto
18 to Canada's
participation
in wars of aggression in Afghanistan
and elsewhere. He said that Islamophobia and restriction of civil
rights are
part of pushing the agenda of war by sowing fear in the society and
demonizing
peoples.
The concluding speaker,
from the University of Toronto-Mississauga, made an impassioned plea
for
justice for the men and youth charged with terrorism. He quoted a
passage from
the Quran that says if one part of the nation feels pain or is abused,
then the
whole nation suffers. He explained how this principle applies not only
between
Muslims, but between all people regardless of religion, calling on all
Canadians to help end the suffering of their Muslim brothers. He
denounced the
rush to condemn those arrested by the media and politicians without a
shred of
evidence as an unacceptable attack based on religious discrimination,
one aimed
at dehumanizing and vilifying people and their communities. He said
that the
arrests, the demonizing in the press, the jailing and torture in jail
are all
an expression of power - they do this because they can. He said he was
not at
the rally to determine innocence or guilt, but to affirm his humanity,
the
humanity of a Canadian Muslim.
This rally concluded with
two young women singing, “We Will Overcome,” which is associated with
the African-American
Civil Rights movement. Afterwards, participants entered the courtroom
to hear the bail hearing, or discussed among each other further
ways to support the rights of the Toronto 18. Organizers were pleased
at the good spirit and massive turnout for the event. In particular,
they were pleased at the massive presence of members of the Muslim
community, citing this rally as an example of how the community
is unwilling to succumb to the fear and isolation the government
and its agencies are trying to impose upon it. Rather, everyone
together is standing firm in defence of the rights of the Toronto 18
and all Canadians against the attacks of the Canadian government.
Feels Like June 2nd All Over Again
- Toronto18.com, March 31, 2008 -
The trial of the only remaining youth in the Toronto 18
case commenced last week in a Brampton courtroom. The new details
disclosed in the Crown factum filed in the case elicited depressingly
new emotional lows in all of the accused and their families.
Reminiscent of that fateful day in June, 2006,
the media sensationalism started all over again, with the reporting of
incomplete evidence and outrageous headlines. Having attended the
entire preliminary hearing, I must confess my shock and disbelief at
the fact that these allegations continue to be presented in a manner
which precludes the public from seeing a
complete or accurate picture.
In our legal system, a preliminary hearing is held for
the purpose of determining if there is enough evidence to warrant
having an accused person proceed to trial. It gives the accused person
and his lawyer an opportunity to learn what evidence the police and
prosecution plan to use against them. At
the end of the preliminary hearing, the judge decides if there is
enough evidence to put the accused on trial, and then the case would
proceed to the Superior Court. Unfortunately, in the case at hand, in
what can reasonably be seen as an attempt to keep alive the climate of
fear and sensationalism, the prosecution
abruptly halted the preliminary hearing before the defense lawyers had
an opportunity to begin to test and challenge the evidence. As some
media have reported based on statements from the informant and others,
the preliminary hearing was not going as planned by the prosecution;
they were far from proving anything
coming even close to an Al Qaeda inspired homegrown terror plot. As
lawyer Michael Moon has publicly stated, the "evidence" lacks any
substance and reveals nothing more insidious than a bunch of guys
talking, camping and goofing around.
Against this backdrop, the prosecutors were able to
pull out their "wild card" and abruptly end the preliminary hearing.
This strategic move unfairly gives the government the ability to keep
up the drama and prolong the climate of fear. As documented by leading
researchers, the psychology of fear is
an effective tool against an uninformed and apathetic public. This is
clearly evident from the superficial facts and out-of-context
statements being thrown out to an unsuspecting, trusting and fearful
public. These young men and youth, who are supposed to be innocent
until proven guilty according to our own fundamental
democratic rights, have been painted as foreign and threatening.
I feel obligated to respond to the recent splash of
terrorist allegations and to provide some balance and context (with the
limited information that I am allowed to disclose as a result of the
publication ban). I direct my comments more specifically to two recent
articles that got extensive exposure: "Alleged
Toronto terror plot detailed in court" by Isabel Teotonio (Toronto
Star, March 26, 2008) and "Video calls for defeat of 'Rome' in
Canadian
terror case" by Collin Freeze (The
Globe and Mail, March 26, 2008). My
comments are as follows:
1) It is alleged that these teens/young adults were
planning "the plotting of an attack 'much greater' in scale than the
London 2005 bombings that killed 52 people." As stated in the material
released by Justice Sproat in the factum of Michael Moon, this is
incorrect. These men were incapable of doing so based
on the fact that they lacked the financing and the planning required to
plot, let alone, carry out something this outrageous. Moreover, they
did not undergo any real training. There is almost a total reliance on
the informants in this case by the RCMP and the CSIS, which hopefully
the
public will see as the case unfolds.
2) "According to the allegations, the so-called Toronto
18 were attempting to secure a safe house to store weapons and practice
military drills, and embarking on a mission to destroy the West "one
they should be willing to die for." This is extremely sensationalized,
and exaggerates and decontextualizes the
actual evidence. If this is in reference to the trip to Opasatika,
then, as stated in the material released by Justice Sproat in the
factum of Michael Moon, discussions about Operation BADR, during this
trip were even described by Mubin Shaikh (the government's own agent)
as "fanciful plans" and constituted a very
very minor portion of a 20 + hour trip.
3) "Storming Parliament Hill and beheading politicians."
This entire conversation, as Michael Moon suggested in 'Terror schemes
exaggerated, lawyer says' by Colin Freeze (The Globe and Mail,
March 27, 2008) referred to a 10 hour long car ride, and the
conversations during this ride which were
completely innocuous and reveal nothing more than a bunch of guys
camping and horsing around. Their level of knowledge and sophistication
is almost laughable given the seriousness of the allegations against
them. In fact, they did not even know the name of the prime minister,
and there were no maps, pictures,
plans, any course of action, computers, or anything that would suggest
they were really plotting something, let alone a terrorist attack. As
stated in the material released by Justice Sproat, in the factum of
Michael Moon, they lacked the finances and the plans to carry out such
deeds.
4) The fragments of conversations that are presented are
problematic. The reference to the London bombings and the quotes used
are cut and pasted with the elimination of any laughter, and the
context of how it is said. Moreover, the public is even more in the
dark in that the demeanor and backdrop against
which these statements are made are not visible. These decontextualized
quotes and statements leave a far more sinister image than would
actually be supported if these conversations are presented in the
proper context.
5) It has been reported that there were videos of
"terrorist indoctrination," in which the accused are exhorted to wage
battle in the new empire of "Rome" in North America, "whether we get
arrested, whether we get killed." This video as stated in the material
released by Justice Sproat, in the factum of Michael
Moon, must be considered in the context of a "hapless `F-Troop,' who
ventured into the deathly cold of winter without a proper tent, or in
fact sufficient or proper supplies of any kind, was reduced to sleeping
in the vehicles at night to prevent freezing to death; trooping off to
Tim Horton's multiple times per day
for coffee and use of the bathroom, tending the fire, and marching with
the primary purpose of staying warm."
6) As described in the press, "the accused attended two
training camps. One was a 12-day camp near the town of Washago, Ont.,
where they practiced military-style exercises in camouflage gear and
undertook firearms training with a 9-mm firearm. The second was a
two-day camp at the Rockwood Conservation
Area, where they donned camouflage clothing and made a propaganda-style
video of their military drills." As made clear in the material released
by Justice Sproat, in the factum of Michael Moon, these were not
training camps and there was nothing even vaguely military about these
camps except that which was
orchestrated by Mubin Shaikh, the government's own agent.
Based on the foregoing and what I have seen in court
during the preliminary hearing there is nothing to justify a belief
that there was a danger to Canada. Indeed this is reinforced by the
fact that much of the "evidence" and training appears to come from the
government's own discredited agent, Mubin
Shaikh, and the fact that the ordering, delivery and control over the
fertilizer rested fully in the hands of another government agent and
the RCMP.
The unbalanced and sensational media coverage of the
case and Islam, the growing trend of Islamophobia and the resulting
hatred against Muslims clearly disadvantage and prejudice the accused.
In fact, those who are identified closely with Islam are easily
associated with terrorism through guilt by
association and the presumption of guilt. The restrictions imposed by
the publication bans preclude an effective voice in opposition to this
hatemongering. As a result Muslims have to relive the sensationalist
propaganda and the characterization of innocent boys and young men
(after all they are all to be treated as
innocent until proven guilty, which seems more and more difficult as
time passes and the prosecution continues to use the media for
misinformation and propaganda) as 'scary monsters'. This only creates
an environment that further marginalizes Muslims (particularly those
who are seen as openly practicing) and makes
it all the more difficult for the accused to be tried in a fair, open
and expeditious manner.
For Your Information
The Case of the Toronto 18
In the first week of June 2006, the mass media was
filled with sensational reports about an alleged terrorist bombing plot
that was purportedly foiled by the work of the Integrated National
Security Enforcement Team (INSET). Thirteen adults and five youths, all
of them Canadian citizens and all from the Muslim
community, were arrested in raids that were co-ordinated to generate
maximum negative publicity about the suspects. All were charged with
"terrorism offences" that had been introduced with the passing of the
Anti-Terrorism Act in 2001. The revelations were carefully orchestrated
and timed to pressure Canadians
to accept blindly the wide invasive powers given to police under the
national security laws in Canada, to support unquestioningly the unjust
military intervention by Canadian forces abroad and to look to one's
own neighbours as the potential threat to safety and security in the
country. In the days that followed the
arrests, the monopoly print media carried such headlines that the
"alleged terrorists" planned to "STORM Parliament Hill, SEIZE the
politicians, BEHEAD the Prime Minister (Globe and Mail), "Jihadist
Generation" (Toronto Star),
"The Jihadists Among Us" (National
Post).
At the press conference on June 4, 2006, where the
arrests of the alleged terrorists were announced by police, Luc
Portelance of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS)
acknowledged that, "Clearly, they're motivated by some of the things we
see around the world. They're against the Western
influences in Islamic countries and have an adherence to violence to
reach a political objective". The thinly-veiled message being sent was
that violent criminals with no respect for innocent human lives are the
ones who oppose such policies as Canada's military occupation of
Afghanistan and that we as Canadians
should be suspicious of people in our midst who take a stand against
the war.
Within hours after the arrests, Prime Minister Stephen
Harper joined in the rush to rally blind trust in the secret
intelligence forces of the state. Without any of the allegations having
been proven, Harper hastily declared that, "Today, Canada's security
and intelligence measures worked." Later the same
day, he denigrated the accused men with a baseless declaration of their
purported motivation: "We are a target because of who we are and how we
live, our society, our diversity and our values. Values such as
freedom, democracy and the rule of law ." Harper also immediately
called President Bush to thank him
for the assistance provided in the arrests. It is known that U.S. law
enforcement was also working closely with the INSET.
Soon after, military officials were conveniently given
a platform through the official media to remind Canadians that the
Afghan mission allegedly has an "anti-terrorist" component, as if to
offer assurances that the mass killing of Afghans by Canadian and
allied troops is somehow protecting Canada
and the world from indiscriminate political violence, both foreign and
"homegrown".
Within days after the arrests, a publication ban was
imposed by the courts preventing anyone from publishing the facts of
the case pending trial, but that did not stop the media from repeating
and embellishing the grisly allegations that were announced by the
police before the ban was imposed. The
ban has made it difficult for the families of the accused men and
community members who know them to expose the truth and to refute the
unwarranted suspicions fostered by the police. More importantly, the
media disinformation has made it very difficult for the accused to have
a "fair" trial in the future.
It is important to note that while in two years of
custody, the detainees were subject to ongoing torture such as
beatings, being forced to walk while bent over at a 90-degree angle,
kept up at all hours of the night, given five minutes to eat their
meals and face every kind of racism and humiliation by jail-guards
and police aimed at breaking their spirits and to "confess" to their
alleged
crimes. This is in violation of not only the Canadian Charter of Rights
and Freedoms but also the UN Convention Against Torture.
Of the five youth who were charged, two have had their
charges stayed and the charges against another were withdrawn. The
trial of the fourth youth just recently began, accompanied by headlines
promising that the case would involve "shocking and sensational"
details, according to a prosecution
document. However, after one day, the same press that promised
"shocking and sensational" details had to run a column questioning
whether the facts really are so "sensational" and casting doubt on
whether the evidence proves the existence of any plot at all. A serious
problem of proof arises in the case because
many of the supposedly incriminating statements and actions were
prompted by police informers who had befriended some of the suspects
and encouraged their activity in order to entrap them, another case of
"dirty tricks" carried out by the CSIS and the RCMP, in order to
justify state organized attacks on people
under the hoax of protecting "Canadians" from terrorists and "terrorist
threats".
The adults have yet to come to trial. Only two
of them were released on bail when the charges were first laid and the
rest remain in custody. A preliminary inquiry for all of them was
started in March 2007 and proceeded until August, at which time it was
abruptly halted, just when one
of the two police informers, Mubin Shaikh, was about to testify. From
Shaikh's earlier accounts to the media, it is clear that the RCMP and
the CSIS had had several members of this alleged "terrorist cell" under
surveillance for some years. It is also clear that Shaikh was recruited
by the CSIS to be an informer and
key organizer of the events leading up to the "sting operation" which
led to the arrests of the Toronto 18. For example, the evidence shows
that Mubin Shaikh was the master-mind behind the so-called "terrorist
training camp" north of Toronto in the winter 2005 which was attended
by a majority of the accused, and
where they were filmed taking "firearms training" under Shaikh's
watchful eye. Shaikh was the only one in the group who had military
training on account of being an army cadet, possessed a gun permit and
a gun, and who had his firearms instructor's certificate. For his work,
Shaikh was well paid and is walking around
a free man. The other informer, who was paid $4 million for his work,
has gone into police protection.
This is the long standing modus operandi of
the Canadian state that is well documented in the Keable Commission and
McDonald Commission reports which show how the RCMP engaged in "dirty
tricks" such as planting bombs in order to "frame" various groups and
make them the target
of state persecution, as the condition to attack the rights of the
entire people. The CSIS was organized by the Canadian state to be a
"check" against RCMP wrongdoing but itself has carried on in the same
vein as the RCMP. For example, it has been shown that the CSIS had a
mole that was involved in the group
which carried out the Air India bombing on June 22 1985 that killed 329
innocent people. It has also been shown that this terrorist act came at
precisely the time when the Canadian government was working closely
with the Indian government to go after "Sikh terrorists" living in
Canada in exchange for economic
concessions on the sub-continent.
The abrupt ending of the pre-trial by the prosecution
in the case of the Toronto 18 effectively denied the defence the chance
to challenge important evidence before trial. There was a widespread
feeling among observers that many of the charges would have been
dismissed at the preliminary stage and
not even referred to a trial if the prosecution had gone ahead and
presented all its evidence. Instead, the prosecution chose to stay all
the original charges and to present a replacement indictment,
containing almost identical charges, directly to the Superior Court,
thereby denying the defendants the right to a preliminary
inquiry.
The new indictment gave each defendant the right to a
new bail hearing. As a result, two of the defendants who were
originally denied bail, including one supposed ringleader, were
released on strict conditions. But then, on April 15, 2008, charges
against four of the adults, including the supposed
ringleader, were stayed after they signed peace bonds, leaving only ten
of the original eighteen suspects still facing charges.
A bail hearing for one of the remaining defendants was
held from April 22 to 25. On the opening day of the bail hearing,
hundreds of concerned citizens held a rally at the courthouse to
highlight the injustice of the imprisonment of the young men and to
demand reasonable bail. The government prosecutor
in the courtroom specifically acknowledged the rally and the "huge"
attendance in the courtroom, and appeared considerably less arrogant
under such close scrutiny. The decision on the young man's bail will be
announced on May 20. Other bail hearings will follow.
The original propaganda blitz against the alleged
plotters, which is now fading, was designed to inspire admiration for
the work of the state security intelligence forces and to quell any
thoughts among Canadians of uniting to oppose official state policy on
"national security" or military intervention
abroad. At the press conference where the arrests were originally
announced, Toronto police chief Bill Blair commented that the public
"is aware that there are real threats in our society and we all have to
remain vigilant. There is no room for complacency." RCMP Assistant
Commissioner Mike McDonell added: "We must remain vigilant. Canada is
susceptible to criminal terrorist activity as much as any other
country."
Canadians must certainly be vigilant, but not for the
reasons given by the spokesmen of the state security forces. On the
contrary, it is important not to permit unproven allegations made by
the state security forces against certain individuals to be used to
split the Canadian polity. We must not permit
the Canadian state of the rich and its police institutions to take the
law into their own hands, to entrap citizens and residents, imprison
and intimidate them and their families on the basis that they are
"alleged terrorists."
More information about the case of the Toronto 18 can
be found on www.toronto18.com
United States
Mistrial Is Declared for Six Men in
Sears Tower Terror Case
A federal judge declared a mistrial on April 16 in the
case of six Miami men charged with plotting to blow up the Sears Tower
in Chicago as part of an "Islamic jihad."
It was the second mistrial in the federal case. The New
York Times reports legal analysts saying the outcome a
significant defeat for the Bush administration, especially its
publicizing of terrorism arrests.
"In a lot of these cases, the government has really
oversold what it's got," said Jenny Martinez, an associate professor of
law at Stanford who was involved in the José Padilla terrorism
case.
"They've held these huge press conferences at the beginning that set up
these expectations that the government
cannot fulfil."
The New York Times reports, "The approach,
analysts
said, often smacked of politics. In this case, when the seven men from
the Liberty City area of Miami were arrested a few months before the
2006 elections, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales outlined the most
sensational evidence at a
news conference. He said the men had been taped promising to fight a
'full ground war against the United States.'
"The jurors faced far less clear-cut evidence. Testimony
showed that a search by the F.B.I. of what it called the group's
headquarters did not find guns, explosives or blueprints for an attack.
"Jurors also heard defense lawyers emphasize that the
defendants made their most aggressive comments in response to questions
or comments by bureau agents posing as operatives of Al Qaeda and
offering $50,000 to help the plot.
"The most serious charge was conspiring to provide
'material support' to a terrorist organization. Prosecutors tried to
prove how intent the men were on attacking the United States by citing
their loyalty oath to Al Qaeda.
"The first trial ended in December with an acquittal for
one of the seven, Lyglenson Lemorin, and a mistrial for the other six,
Narseal Batiste, accused of being the ringleader; Patrick Abraham;
Burson Augustine; Rotschild Augustine; Naudimar Herrera; and Stanley G.
Phanor.
"The second trial followed a similar path. Each side
laid out many of the same arguments and again the jury deadlocked.
"After 13 days of deliberations, Judge Joan A. Lenard of
Federal District Court ordered a mistrial."
The New York Times quotes Bruce J. Winick, a
law professor at the University of Miami who followed the case, saying
the mistrial showed public scepticism of the preemptive
terrorism-related arrests.
"Politics played too important a role in this
prosecution," Professor Winick said. "We should follow our normal
prosecution pattern, which is to gather the evidence."
News agencies report a new trial date has been set for
January 6, 2009, with jury selection to begin the next day.
Despite the mistrial in the case of the Miami Six and
many other similar cases, the U.S. administration, like the Harper
government and Canadian security forces, is adamant on justifying such
arrests, claiming that errors committed against innocent
victims are worth it to protect security. Security
certificates, indefinite detention, torture and deaths in custody are
all justified on this basis. The following article in the Washington
Post quotes various sources giving these arguments.
Few Clear Wins in U.S.
Anti-Terror Cases -- Moving Early on Domestic Suspects Often Does Not
Bring Convictions
- Carrie Johnson and
Walter Pincus, Washington Post,
April 21, 2008 -
When seven ragtag men in a Miami religious sect were
indicted in 2006 for their role in a bizarre plot to
blow up the FBI Miami office and Chicago's Sears Tower, then-Attorney
General Alberto R. Gonzales said the case represented "a new brand of
terrorism" among homegrown gangs that "may prove to be as dangerous as
groups like al-Qaeda."
Justice Department officials used similar rhetoric in a
2003 case against a Tampa-area man and his associates who allegedly
supported a reign of terror by a violent Palestinian group. The
officials did so again in a 2004 case involving a Dallas charity known
as the Holy Land Foundation, which they
said provided "blood money" to finance overseas suicide bombings.
But juries in all three cases saw things differently
than the government's national security team. In the most recent
disappointment for federal prosecutors, a jury last week did not reach
a verdict in the Miami case for the second time. In the Holy Land case,
one defendant was cleared of the charges
and jurors deadlocked on charges against the others. After 12 days of
deliberation, jurors in the Tampa case acquitted two men and could not
agree on the charges against the main defendant.
The department's domestic terrorism record to date -- no
new attacks, but few blockbuster convictions and some high-profile hung
juries or acquittals -- has provoked criticism of its early strategy
for going after homegrown terrorist cells and the people who fund plots
well before deadly events occur.
Jurors appear to be particularly troubled by a
controversial element in the Miami case, part of several other early
prosecutions, in which FBI informants encouraged others to perform acts
they otherwise may not have done.
This week, federal prosecutors in Miami will announce
whether they will seek to try the defendants for the third time. The
government's incentive to do so is powerful: Two years ago, it intended
the case to be a model for intervention against potential terrorists
before they acquire the weapons and
insight needed to act.
Independent commissions have urged the FBI to become
more aggressive at detecting threats and neutralizing them before they
explode. But what emerged was an approach where investigators sometimes
acted very early, charging conspiracies to commit minor crimes or
immigration and tax violations
as a way to preempt potential threats, while avoiding the disclosure of
sensitive intelligence.
Justice Department officials say they are pleased to
have won a few high-profile convictions as well as some little-noticed
guilty pleas. Increasingly, authorities say, their current goal is
broader than a courtroom victory: It is collecting enough intelligence
to eradicate a threat by using informants, wiretaps
and other tools to get as clear a picture as possible .
"Our mission is not just to disrupt an isolated plot,
but to thoroughly dismantle the entire network that supports it," FBI
Director Robert S. Mueller III told an audience this month.
***
The Miami case revolved around a part-time contractor
who gathered a loose band of men in a rented room in a downscale
neighborhood known as Liberty City. The group, distantly affiliated
with the Moorish Science Temple religion, talked about Muhammad, Jesus,
Confucius and Buddha, and also
practiced martial arts.
Its leader, Narseal Batiste, told his Yemenese grocer in
October 2005 that he wanted to conduct jihad to overthrow the U.S.
government. The grocer, an FBI informant who himself had a criminal
record, told the bureau. The FBI then employed a second informant, this
one an Arab from overseas who
depicted himself as a representative of Osama bin Laden.
Batiste confided, somewhat fantastically, that he wanted
to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago, which would then fall into a
nearby prison, freeing Muslim prisoners who would become the core of
his Moorish army. With them, he would establish his own country.
The FBI informant, under bureau guidance, refocused
Batiste on what he said was bin Laden's plot -- to bomb FBI offices in
several U.S. cities. Batiste's group was enlisted by the FBI informant
to aid in the attack. The informant then wrote out what he termed an
al-Qaeda oath, and got Batiste to lead
his men in taking it -- an act that the government argued was key
evidence of their guilt.
After one of the seven left Miami to get away from the
group, an internal dispute developed and it fell apart. They were then
arrested, charged with conspiracy to commit a terrorist act and placed
in prison, where they remain.
Jurors in the case, which ended in a mistrial last week,
have not spoken about it publicly. But panel members who deliberated in
the first trial told reporters they were skeptical that the defendants
were as dangerous as prosecutors asserted.
***
Formerly the largest Muslim charity in the United
States, the Holy Land Foundation was "funding the works of evil" and
encouraging suicide bombings on behalf of Hamas, according to a press
conference statement in 2004 by then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft.
Earlier that morning, authorities had arrested a group
of men with ties to the foundation for supporting Hamas, violating laws
that bar financial transactions that threaten national security, and
money laundering, among 42 counts that could have sent the men to
prison for decades.
But the prosecution ended in a mistrial last October,
when Dallas jurors could not reach agreement on charges involving two
defendants and mostly cleared another of criminal wrongdoing. Jurors
have offered contrasting accounts of the problems they faced, but at
least one cast doubt on the quality
of the evidence. Prosecutors are scheduled to retry the case later this
year.
A less-publicized case involves Javed Iqbal, a Brooklyn
businessman who provided overseas cable access to clients and data to
others, including U.S. government agencies. In August 2006, Iqbal was
arrested for conspiring to supply financial support to a terrorist
agency. His alleged crime was selling
access to Al-Manar, the news and information cable channel run by
Hezbollah out of Lebanon.
According to court filings, the case started when a
confidential informant told the FBI in February 2006 that Iqbal was
selling access to Al-Manar. At the time, it was not illegal, but the
next month the Treasury Department added Al-Manar to the list on the
grounds that funds it obtained went to Hezbollah,
which the United States considers a terrorist group.
In June, the FBI's confidential informant went back to
Iqbal's company and again offered to buy the overseas cable service
that included Al-Manar. Iqbal told the informant that Al-Manar was
temporarily unavailable, but would return. Iqbal also allegedly said he
knew the channel was now on the terrorist
list, but he expected that to change.
After being arrested for conspiring to violate the law,
Iqbal was released on $250,000 bail. In November 2006, he was indicted
again, along with a partner, this time on multiple charges of
conspiracy to provide support to Hezbollah.
At the time of the arrests, Michael Garcia, the U.S.
attorney for the Southern District of New York, said, "As terrorist
organizations become more sophisticated, it is critical that we respond
using all the law enforcement tools the law provides." They are
awaiting trial.
***
The Justice Department, U.S. attorneys and the FBI have
doggedly pursued individual suspects in these domestic terrorism cases,
even when their initial steps are unsuccessful.
In Miami, prosecutors not only sought a retrial after
the first hung jury but also went after the one person, Lyglenson
Lemorin, whom the jury found not guilty. Instead of turning him loose,
they immediately had him detained for possible deportation to his
native Haiti on grounds that he had been indicted
on a felony charge.
Law enforcement officers say that in deciding when to
indict, they weigh whether the targets might flee overseas, whether the
cost of surveillance is paying adequate dividends, and whether a group
is likely to take actions that could cost human lives.
"There's a risk here that while we're trying to perfect
our evidence that something very bad could happen," said Patrick Rowan,
acting chief of the Justice Department's National Security Division.
"It's certainly the case that there is a value in stopping a plot, even
if you aren't 100 percent certain that
a conviction is assured."
Robert M. Chesney, a law professor at Wake Forest
University who studies the government's terrorism cases, said the
picture is complicated. "The bottom line is that they are doing
considerably better than is often reported . . . but they certainly
aren't doing perfectly and they've had plenty of black
eyes along the way," Chesney said.
One senior law enforcement official recently said, "We
may have been too aggressive at the beginning." He thinks that early
cases, such as the one in Miami, were pushed too hard and that the FBI
and U.S. attorneys now understand that getting a full picture of
potential threats by groups is as important
as making cases.
J. Wells Dixon, a staff attorney for the Center for
Constitutional Rights, said the Miami case is among the "few and far
between" disappointments in the government's aggressive campaign to
attack the sources and funding of possible terrorist groups. These
outliers, Dixon said, are not a signal that terrorism
cases are too complex for juries but rather a sign that the current
system is working.
"If you have 12 jurors who decide that an individual or
an organization should not be convicted, I think that suggests these
people are in fact not guilty of anything," Dixon said.
Andrew C. McCarthy prosecuted Omar Abdel Rahman, the man
known as the blind sheik, for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center
bomb plot. McCarthy said that had the first Trade Center bombing, which
killed six people, not happened, he still wonders whether the
government could have secured
convictions of the same defendants on more nebulous charges that they
had made "fantastical" plans to blow up the United Nations and the
Lincoln Tunnel.
"The argument that the people really are pathetic,
hapless, incapable, has more resonance if you strike at an early
stage," he said. "In a way, you're undone by your own efficiency. I do
think it's harder to be a prosecutor today."
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