Details sought in ex-Idol’s terror trial
Contestant, now a doctor, charged with conspiracy
OTTAWA — Federal lawyers prosecuting alleged terrorist Khurram Sher will begin presenting their case Tuesday against the former Canadian Idol contestant.
The 31-year-old pathologist was arrested in August 2010 and is charged with conspiring with two other men to facilitate a terrorist activity that police have alleged involved a possible bomb attack in the Ottawa area.
Sher, who is free on bail, has pleaded not guilty and is being tried by judge alone.
A publication ban has been imposed on the identities of his two alleged co-conspirators to protect their right to a fair trial.
Proceedings began Monday with a motion by defence lawyer Giuseppe Cipriano asking for more information from Crown prosecutors on the specifics of their case.
“This is a very serious offence for which our client faces serious penal consequences,” Cipriano told the court. “This is not your routine impaired driving charge.”
Cipriano is apparently concerned that the prosecution has produced too vague an indictment against Sher.
“This is an application about trial fairness,” he said.
The Crown alleges that Sher’s offence occurred between February and August 2010.
The conspiracy case has generated 11,000 documents and 200,000 pages, the court was told.
Crown prosecutor Jason Wakely said it might never be known exactly when the alleged conspiracy started, “just that it did.”
Included in the prosecution’s case would be 96 phone intercepts, 24 Internet intercepts and 33 emails, he said. But despite the huge number of documents, he predicted the trial could end within the scheduled four weeks.
Sher, a McGill University graduate, was arrested less than a month after starting work as a pathologist at St. Thomas Elgin General Hospital near London, Ont., and became an international video sensation when clips from his 2008 Canadian Idol audition were uploaded onto YouTube.
The fun-loving Canadian Idol character was in stark contrast to the terrorist conspirator police allege was the real Sher.
They allege he was involved in a bomb-making plot that threatened not only the capital region but “Canadian security” at home and abroad.
Police said at the time of the arrests that they moved on the alleged plotters because they feared the men were about to start sending money to other terrorists in Afghanistan to finance the purchase of weapons for use against coalition forces.
A senior RCMP officer alleged at the time that although an attack was still months away, the plotters were moving into a preparatory phase.
After the arrests, police said they seized terrorist literature, videos and manuals, along with dozens of electronic circuit boards allegedly designed to detonate homemade bombs remotely.
Police claimed the alleged plot stretched from Ottawa to Afghanistan, Dubai, Iran and Pakistan.
According to an affidavit filed by the RCMP in the Federal Court of Canada, some of that information that led to the arrests came from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and the London Metropolitan Police in Britain.
Judge Charles Hackland of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice said he would rule on the defence request on Tuesday morning.