Jurors watch film of alleged train plotters
Toronto • Two years ago, on a bright September day, Chiheb Esseghaier and Raed Jaser walked the length of a Toronto-area railway bridge, wondering aloud, court heard Monday, how best to bring it down.
Unbeknownst to them, the two men were being watched that day, from above. And on Monday, jurors watched on huge video screens as they strolled the massive span, bending at times to examine it, in the company of an undercover FBI agent.
Mr. Esseghaier, who appeared to sleeping through much of the testimony Monday morning, wore a green and black camouflage jacket in the recording.
Midway through their walk, a large blue and grey train barrelled
by. As the men scrambled to cross the tracks, Mr. Jaser pointed to the passing cars, the agent testified. “This is the one, by the way,” Mr. Jaser told him, he said. “That’s the target.”
Mr. Jaser and Mr. Esseghaier are on trial for allegedly planning to attack a train in Ontario at the behest of overseas jihadis. According to the Crown, they originally planned to knock out a five-metre chunk of a railway bridge
outside St. Catharine’s before settling instead on the Highland Creek railway bridge in Scarborough.
On Monday, jurors listened to long excerpts from conversations between the two men that were secretly recorded by the FBI agent, who testified they took place en route to and atop a bridge on the banks of Lake Ontario.
The transcripts reveal Mr. Jaser’s growing skepticism
about the plan and his everincreasing fear of getting caught.
“Come here,” he said to the two other men at one point. “Look at this. You have the beam here and you also have support beams ... it is a very solid structure.”
Later, looking up at the massive support beams underneath the bridge, Mr. Jaser said it would take a “good hour, an hour and half ” to
cut through a single one. “There is no laser,” he said.
“Well, let me ask you,” the agent replied. “If we had one, then can we do such a thing?”
“I would need military grade,” Mr. Jaser replied. “I don’t think you can get it.”
Mr. Jaser spent much of the walk urging his alleged co-conspirator to lower his voice and speak in Arabic. The three men were walking on a massive, highly visible rail bridge. And Mr. Jaser seemed, not unreasonably, worried they might be seen or heard.
“Take photos, take photos, take photos,” Mr. Esseghaier urged him at one point, according to the transcripts. “I can’t, Habibi,” Mr. Jaser responded. “That guy just came back to take another look at us again. It is the same guy.”
After the walk, the three men returned to the agent’s car, parked 10 minutes away. There, Mr. Esseghaier allegedly prepared a list of items that needed to be done before the scheduled attack in December.
They had to buy new robes, turbans and a flag for the video they planned to shoot, he said, according to the recordings played in court. They also needed to buy a camera to shoot the video and a radar gun to test the speed of oncoming trains.
The agent, meanwhile, was asked to research equipment that could cut through the bridge.
As they were still preparing the list, someone approached the car from the outside. “Put it down, put it down,” the agent said in the transcript. “The police are coming to talk to us.” At that point in the recording, court broke for day. The trial resumes Tuesday.
Earlier Monday, court heard of a bizarre exchange between Mr. Esseghaier and the undercover agent over the best way to lure another man into their alleged plot. “If I marry his sister, then we become like a family, right?” Mr. Esseghaier said, according to the translated transcript. “So he cannot refuse such an operation.”
“I don’t know,” the agent replied. “I mean, how old is she?”
It doesn’t matter, Mr. Esseghaier said. “Those family, they are religious ... they don’t care.” They could even have a religious ceremony now, “behind the back of the government,” he added, and make it official later when the girl turns “17 or 18 years of age.”