Canadian radical jihadists who plotted murder
Chiheb Esseghaier, age 32 is an ideologue and is also an
unkempt, stuttering Tunisian PhD student studying in Quebec. He was also a
brilliant scientist specializing in nanotechnology. Unfortunately for him, he chose to be an al-Qaida-inspired
terrorist who was eager to carry out jihad, armed with exuberant plans with
surprisingly little practical sense on how to carry them out.
Raed
Jaser, 37, was far more calculating and more grounded in reality, a married
zealot working at his brother-in-law’s moving company, with a pardoned criminal
record for credit card fraud, a growing passion for preaching the Qur’an and a
fiery hatred for Jews and other infidels which would also include Christians
and anyone who isn’t a Muslim. Jaser worked as a driver for A Plus School Service and even passed a
police background check. But even he couldn’t blend in society enough to avoid
suspicion. His increasingly radical proselytizing at Toronto-area mosques was
drawing attention. An imam at a North York mosque reportedly alerted
authorities to Jaser’s extremist views.
These two men were homegrown
losers who had terrorist ideas on how to get even with Americans and Canadians
for participating in fighting terrorists in the Middle East. They both wore the full beards as
religious Muslims, both prayed five times a day and both railed against the
permissive society that surrounded them.
Then they met by chance, someone else who appeared to them as being
quite sympathetic to their cause. He
called himself Tamer
el-Noury. It was Esseghaier who met him first while he was on his way to a conference in the
United States. He began talking to the
American stranger about his contempt for infidels. The reasoning for his
willingness to talk that way to a complete stranger was because the stranger
looked like a Muslim. I don’t know if he was a Muslim but one thing I do know
is that both Esseghaier and later Jasper didn’t
know that the stranger was a member of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
OOPS!
Since the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) already were already aware
of the goings on with these two losers, they contacted the FBI and arranged to
have an undercover agent cozy up to the unsuspecting Esseghaier. This fool and
later his partner in crime were hooked line and sinker. In fact, the hooks went
so far down their throats; it would have required major surgery to remove the
hooks.
Didn’t their mothers tell them to never talk to strangers? I guess there were other lessons they chose
to ignore also such as respect for fellow human beings.
Meanwhile, CSIS (Canada’s
anti-terrorist organization) was investigating Esseghaier as well. They had a
federal warrant to wiretap Esseghaier’s conversations from May 11, 2012. They
were tapping Jaser’s car from August 24 that year. These two losers were the
targets of three covert investigations. By then Esseghaier was already a
subject of interest to the FBI as well. He had applied for a U.S. visa to
travel to the TechConnect World Conference in Santa Clara, California and
during his April 18, 2012 visa interview; he mentioned that he’d travelled
twice to Iran, in 2011 and 2012. His visa was approved—the sting was born.
Mentioning his trip to Iran was a big mistake.
Jaser seemed far more dangerous than
his comrade-in-arms. Esseghaier may have had instructions from the Mujahedeen
overseas but he was impulsive, and a loose cannon who had little abilities on
how to bring those plans to fruition. On the other hand, his Palestinian brother seemed far more
capable of bringing their plan to a terrifying reality.
How about these words audio taped from Jaser’s mouth? “Islam is a
monster, a beast. Islam is a very powerful weapon and it is in the right hand.”
Then there was this statement from him as he was rhetorically talking to
Canadians, “Get out. Get out before we kill you all because we want this whole
city, this whole country to burn.” Are these the words of a man trying to de-radicalize his
fellow terrorist? They are the words of a raving terrorist.
I guess Jaser felt secure talking to whom he believed was a wealthy Egyptian/American
Muslim who was willing to act on Jaser’s beliefs. The agent’s hook dug deeper
every time that fool opened his mouth.
How does a man who has lived 20 years
in Canada turn on the nation that took in his Palestinian family? The answer is
easy. He is a psychopath. He doesn’t give a tinker’s dam (a circular piece of
metal worth less than a cent) about human beings. He was willing to kill 50 or
more passengers on a train heading from Toronto to New York. That is why he and his fellow terrorist along
with their unknown FBI undercover agent were walking along railway tracks and
over rail bridges to find a spot where they could place dynamite so that they
could derail a passenger train.
Esseghaier
was charged with conspiring to murder persons unknown for the benefit of a
terrorist group, conspiring to interfere with transportation facilities for the
benefit of a terrorist group, three counts of participating in the activities
of a terrorist group. Jaser was charged with conspiring to murder persons
unknown for the benefit of a terrorist group, and two counts of participating
in the activities of a terrorist group. The jury couldn’t arrive at a decision
of another charge facing Jaser to wit; conspiring to damage
transportation property.
Jaser told the RCMP that he was
trying to “de-radicalize” his friend, that he was just going through the
motions of the plan in hopes that he could show him it was impossible—a defence
that was never raised at his trial. Instead, his lawyer, John Norris argued that
his client was a fraudster just hoping to wrangle cash from el-Noury to finance
a restaurant business. The lawyer offered no explanation as to why Jaser was
discussing plans to derail a train with Esseghaier long before the undercover
agent appeared on the scene. In fact, weeks before he even met el-Noury, Jaser
was seen with Esseghaier scouting out the St. Catharines, Ontario train
station. Does that mean that Jaser was lying?
The answer to that question is no different than the answer to this next
question—“Is the pope Catholic?”
Rather than trying to “de-radicalize”
his friend, the recorded tapes make Jaser sound even more bloodthirsty than
Esseghaier and even more crafty. Jaser preached the importance of “Blend,
blend, blend to lull the disbelievers into thinking your views were benign,
when the opposite is true. Your delivery must change from person to person.” He
said this as they ate Timbits in Dennison Park. “The war is deception. So you
need to play certain parts.” Are these the words of a man trying to
de-radicalize his fellow terrorist?
Crown lawyers have
spent nearly four weeks presenting their side of the case against Raed Jaser
and Chiheb Esseghaier, The latter defendant said that he didn’t recognize the court because he insisted that he could only be tried by
God and he rejected the Canadian Criminal
Code by declaring that the Code
was a poor substitute for sharia law. He remained silent throughout the six
weeks of the trial. In a
surprising development after the Crown wrapped its arguments late Thursday
afternoon, both Esseghaier, who was representing himself and Jaser's lawyer
indicated they would not be calling a defence.
Esseghaier decided
that he would speak after being told by the judge that he could address the
jury before they began their deliberation if that was his wish.
He rambled on and on
and must have sounded like a small child as his gibberish spewed from his
mouth.
That was unfortunate
for Jaser because his lawyer had suggested to the jury that his client had no
intention of derailing a train. He said that his client’s motive was purely for
the purpose of wrangling money from the third man and only that. If that was
so, he should have testified to that fact. Since he chose not to, the jury no
doubt disregarded his lawyer’s argument.
The jury spent 10 days trying to reach a verdict. No
doubt their verdict against Esseghaier
was a slam dunk. And their verdict against Jaser was relatively easy also for
all but one of the charges against him. They couldn’t agree on the charge of
him conspiring to damage transportation property since he left the other two
men before the serious discussions came about with respect to derailing a train
because (as he claims) he withdrew from the plan as he was exasperated with the
recklessness of Esseghaier and also because he was spooked by cops who
occasionally watched them walking on the tracks.
I don’t see how the
jury couldn’t agree on his guilt of attempting to derail a passenger
train. After all, he was heard on tape
saying that derailing the train was doable. No doubt the crown will ask for a
retrial for that particular offence.
Esseghaier was convicted of five charges,
including three counts of participating in terrorism activities including
conspiring to derail a Via rail passenger train. Jaser faces up to life in prison after being
found guilty of planning to commit murder in association with or for the
benefit of a terrorist group.
They won’t be sentence to death since Canada abolished capital punishment in 1976. In 1985, while I was addressing a UN crime conference held in Milan, Italy, I recommended that all terrorists of all kinds be executed. My reasoning was that if they are imprisoned, like a great many in Israel were, they would eventually be released as those in Israeli prisons were and then return to terrorism again, just as many in the Israeli prison who were released did.
In Canada, the penalty for acts of terrorism can be up to life in prison. Planning a terrorist act is a form of terrorism. The dominant objectives of sentencing in this case must be to denounce, to repudiate and to punish the conduct of these two men’s misconduct, to reinforce our Canadian values of individual worth and peaceful, tolerant co-existence, to deter others from such misconduct, and to protect the public from any such further criminal conduct. Further, giving these two men credit for their pre-sentence custody would, in my view, skew the whole purpose of sentencing terrorists.
The sentencing will take place in July 2015. I will let you know what the sentences are in an UPDATE at the bottom of this article after I get the information.
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