Terror trial hears details of arrests
Duo facing terror charges were picked up during evening stroll in Villeray park
The young couple on trial for terror-related charges at the Montreal courthouse was placed under arrest while they were strolling through a park on a spring evening in Villeray.
Details of the arrests made in April 2015 were presented on Thursday to the jury hearing the trial of Sabrine Djermane, 21, and El Mahdi Jamali, 20. The couple faces four charges related to their alleged attempt to leave Canada to join the terrorist group ISIL in Syria and an alleged attempt to build a bomb to commit a terrorist act in Canada.
Rudin Gjoka, a member of the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET), was assigned to arrest Jamali, while a fellow member of INSET was assigned to arrest Djermane. Gjoka said Jamali offered no resistance when he was approached and said nothing when he was informed he would be charged in connection with his plans to travel to Syria. The arrests were carried out on April 15, 2015, at 7:20 p.m. as the couple walked together through Villeray Park. Two marked Montreal police cars were on standby.
Djermane and Jamali were brought in unmarked cars to the RCMP’s headquarters on Dorchester St., where they were detained in holding cells.
The next witness to testify after Gjoka was Sébastien Fradet — a Mountie and a member of INSET in 2015 — who was assigned to seize items from the couple while they were detained. He said he only seized a cellphone from Jamali, but that Djermane was carrying a BlackBerry and several other items, including a credit and debit card, a passport photo and a receipt for two passport photos and documents concerning her Canadian and Algerian citizenship. The jury was told on Wednesday that the parents of both accused had hidden their passports from them shortly before they were arrested.
At one point in the trial on Thursday, Superior Court Justice Marc David asked prosecutor Lyne Décarie why it was necessary to have Fradet go over each item he seized if the defence was not contesting what was found on their clients when arrested. Décarie said her reasons for taking the extra steps would become clearer when other witnesses are called.
While going over some of the items Fradet seized from Djermane, the jury was shown a passport photo she had recently taken. Jury members were also shown images of four cards she was carrying on her at the time of her arrest. Three of the cards, including her OPUS card, included recent photos of her. In all four photos, Djermane was wearing a hijab, a veil worn by some Muslim women. Djermane has not worn a veil during the first two days of the trial.
So far, the jury has only heard bits and pieces of evidence concerning the bomb Djermane and Jamali were allegedly preparing. And most of the evidence has come during questions asked by defence lawyers while they cross-examine prosecution witnesses. Most of the questions of that nature were put to Sûreté du Québec Sgt. Jean-François Talbot, a member of INSET, one of the police officers assigned to search the apartment where Jamali lived, on De Louvain St.
Djermane’s lawyer, Charles Benmouyal, asked Talbot questions about a series of photos he took of a bag from a Dollarama store that contained unopened packages of screws, duct tape, batteries, glue and other items that appear commonplace on the surface. Talbot said he wasn’t told anything in particular about the items in the bag while he photographed them. He said he was told, later on, that the items were possibly materials for a homemade bomb.
Benmouyal also asked if Talbot was advised to consider the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings (a terrorist attack where pressure cooker bombs were used to kill three people and injure several others) or if he was advised to look for a pressure cooker inside the apartment on De Louvain. Talbot said he was not advised to look for a pressure cooker and that no one mentioned what happened at the 2013 Boston Marathon to him before the search warrant was executed.
The trial resumes on Friday.