FACING DEPORTATION
Suspect in alleged Toronto terror plot deemed threat to security, CBSA tells immigration hearing
After landing at Toronto’s Pearson airport on April 3, 2013, Jahanzeb Malik told the border officer who questioned him he had been teaching in Libya. He told the Canadian Security Intelligence Service the same story.
But they apparently didn’t buy it because the RCMP’s national security unit in Toronto soon launched an undercover investigation that found he had been up to something far more sinister in the North African desert: attending a training camp.
At an immigration hearing on Wednesday, the Canada Border Services Agency also alleged that Malik, who first came to Canada in 2004 as a student, was a supporter of Islamic State, also known as ISIL or ISIS, and had plotted to bomb the U. S. consulate and financial buildings in Toronto.
“The planning was elaborate,” CBSA officer Jessica Lourenco told the Immigration and Refugee Board, “including discussing with the undercover officer the video message they would leave behind in order to inspire others.”
Noting that Malik had allegedly planned a “terrorist attack on facilities here in Toronto,” IRB member Marilou Funston ordered him detained in the Lindsay, Ont., jail, while the CBSA continues its investigation.
Malik has not been charged with terrorism offences. Rather, the CBSA is preparing to deport him on the grounds he is a threat to security. While Malik is a permanent resident, he is not a Canadian citizen.
Anser Farooq, his lawyer, said if Malik had done what the authorities have alleged, he should be charged, not sent back to Pakistan. “Why wouldn’t you prosecute this guy and give him life? I don’t think this is the right way to do it.”
The hearing at which the allegations were disclosed was witnessed by only two reporters. It offered a rare glimpse of the tactics police are using to address Canada’s growing extremism problem — in this case, a six- month undercover operation.
Ontario’s Integrated National Security Enforcement Team began its investigation last September. The undercover officer contacted Malik, a flooring contractor, about installing hardwood floors in his house, the CBSA said.
After befriending Malik, the of- ficer claimed he was Bosnian and had participated in the Balkans Civil War. They talked about religion and according to the CBSA, Malik said he supported al- Qaida and Islamic State.
He also confided that he had attended camps in Libya, where he learned “combat, weapons and landmine training,” Lourenco said. He said fighting jihad was “righteous” and that those who died doing so were “martyrs.”
In an attempt to radicalize the undercover officer, Malik told him to watch videos by Anwar al- Awlaki, the late al- Qaida propagandist. He also claimed to have been in contact with al- Awlaki.
He showed the undercover officer videos of Islamic State executions, including beheadings, Lourenco said. “He indicated his support for the attackers in Paris,” she added.
Finally, he began to recruit the officer to build an explosive device that could be remotely detonated, she said. His targets included the U. S. consulate and buildings in the Toronto financial district that were not identified at the hearing.
On March 3, the RCMP sent its evidence to the CBSA, which arrested Malik on Monday. Had the man he attempted to recruit not been an undercover officer, “mass destruction and possible loss of life would have been the result,” Lourenco said.
The CBSA said it was still trying to verify the details of several trips Malik made, including some to Pakistan, after he came to Canada on a student visa issued in Islamabad on April 13, 2004, allowing him to study at York University in Toronto.