Cape Breton Post

Toronto 18 terror plot architect wins parole

- ADRIAN HUMPHREYS

TORONTO — A key architect of the spectacula­r Toronto 18 terrorism plot to detonate huge truck bombs in Toronto in 2006 was granted day parole Tuesday.

“I'm just so thankful,” Shareef Abdelhalee­m said when told the decision by the Parole Board of Canada, “You will not be sorry.

“I know that you're taking a risk and this is going to be highly mediatized, but in front of all these people and in front of God — I know I said I was not a religious man, but I do believe in God — I will not disappoint you.

“You will never hear from me again.”

Abdelhalee­m, 45, was granted six months of day parole to study in Montreal, where he is to reside in an enclosed facility after the halfway house that had previously accepted him withdrew its support.

His release had conditions attached. He was told not to associate with anyone involved in crime or radicalize­d activity, not go to Toronto without permission from parole officials, and not have a position of responsibi­lity “in any spiritual or religious activities or groups that share the same beliefs, this includes the mosque,” the parole board said.

He was ordered to attend a de-radicaliza­tion treatment program and limited to owning a single cellphone and one SIM card that parole officials had access to.

The decision, which seemed to surprise Abdelhalee­m and went against the recommenda­tion of the Correction­al Service of Canada, came after a three-hour parole hearing Tuesday.

At the start of his hearing, he said he was so nervous, he just vomited; he was heard telling someone at Cowansvill­e Institutio­n in Quebec: “I'm sorry, I'll clean it up.”

The so-called Toronto 18 terror plot arrests were a momentous shock for many Canadians.

There were 18 people originally arrested in sweeping national security raids in June 2006, accused of wide-ranging plans to detonate powerful truck bombs at key financial, military and intelligen­ce targets; there were plans to storm Parliament, the CBC, take hostages and behead the prime minister.

Charges against some were stayed or dropped along the way but Abdelhalee­m was the last of them to be convicted. He was named a “key architect” of the bomb plot and received a life sentence without chance of parole for 10 years.

He said he has spent 14 years in prison reflecting on his actions.

Before he joined the plot, he was a successful software developer. He was earning a lot and spending a lot. He drove a BMW convertibl­e and spent $5,000 on a jacket.

“I felt like my presence in the universe had no meaning,” he said. “I felt like an overgrown fat pig whose main purpose in life was to consume more, more, more. And I looked at the whole world around me and there is disasters and suffering.”

It was an attempt to address this malaise that led him to rekindle his interest in his Muslim faith. As he did, he met Zakaria Amara, the plot's ringleader.

“He presented what I now think is a ridiculous plot to try to change the world,” he said. “It seemed like a very fast way to bring about change. It seemed like the right thing to do, I hate to say, back then.”

He said he now sees how wrong he was: “Definitely the wrong thing to do from all angles — moral, political, practical, anything.

“Thank God we were stopped.”

 ?? FILE ?? Muhammad Shareef Abdelhalee­m.
FILE Muhammad Shareef Abdelhalee­m.

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