REPENT! SUSPECT TELLS JURY
Via terror plot trial nears end
One of two men accused of terrorism in the Via passenger train plot has urged the jurors to “retreat from the charge” before them as a first step of their “sincere repentance to God, your True Lord.”
Chiheb Esseghaier, who with Raed Jaser is pleading not guilty to terrorism-related charges in an alleged plan to damage a railway bridge and derail a train in 2012, made the remarks, technically a “closing address,” through lawyer Ingrid Grant on Wednesday.
He is unrepresented by counsel but for Grant, who is called an “amicus curiae,” Latin for “friend of the court.”
As the trial draws to a close, Esseghaier’s own earthly judgment day is fast approaching, yet he warned the jurors in the twopage statement that “the Judgment Day is sure to come and that’s why you have to prepare yourselves for that Great Day.”
The statement was a preachy mix of religious instruction and Esseghaier’s self-described “sincere advice.”
At one point, he said: “Anything good we do, me or you, we do it only for the good of our own soul. How come you believe that many human beings are judges, and God, creator of humans, is not judge?”
He reminded them that he was a scientist who was writing his PhD thesis when he was arrested on April 22, 2013.
“That’s why I invite you to trust me when I say to you that the Qur’an provided by the Prophet Muhammad in the 7th-century contains scientific statements that you can never reach without issuing the technology of the 20th century.”
Esseghaier’s position has been that the trial shouldn’t have been conducted under the Criminal Code, but rather under the Qur’an, as Ontario Superior Court Justice Michael Code told the jurors last week as the evidence in the case was completed.
Esseghaier decided he wouldn’t take part in the trial, and remained silent throughout it.
But when Code asked if he wanted to make closing remarks, he said he did. “Although it’s unusual,” the judge said, he decided it was best to allow Esseghaier to have his say.
Code then decided Grant would actually read the address because Esseghaier’s “fairly strong accent” might make it difficult for jurors to understand everything he said.
It was a bizarre finish to a day in which prosecutor Croft Michaelson, in his closing address, made a compelling argument that Esseghaier and Jaser were guilty “beyond any reasonable doubt” and that the “overwhelming evidence” the jurors have heard establishes it.
Often referring to about 25 hours of wiretap excerpts the jurors have heard, in which the two men discussed the train project and other potential acts of terror among themselves and with an undercover FBI agent, Michaelson painted the two as jihadists with “deeply held extremist beliefs and a deep desire to instil fear in the Canadian public.”
As Jaser put it once, Michaelson said, “we want to make sure they (Canadians) understand as long as they’re over there (in Afghanistan), their people will not feel safe on this side.”
The train plot, Michaelson reminded the jurors, was already underway before Esseghaier met the FBI agent and effectively recruited him as a potential bagman; the agent was posing as a wealthy American Muslim looking to support jihad.
The plan was to derail the train by cutting or blowing a hole in a bridge, and it was tentatively scheduled for December, so the men could work under cover of winter darkness.
But the train project wasn’t the only plan the two discussed.
Esseghaier, who claimed to be acting on the loose instructions of jihadists he met while visiting Iran, talked wistfully of finding a cook to poison soldiers at a Canadian military base and once even considered trying to explode a long-dormant volcano in Yellowstone National Park.
Jaser, meanwhile, favoured a sniper plot that would see him, or a hired gun, pick off prominent Jews and political leaders, perhaps at Toronto’s annual Gay Pride parade.
After the operation, the men planned to send out a prepared video, so people would know the derailment had been an act of terrorism, as opposed to an accident.
Michaelson told the jurors the two weren’t planning a single attack, but continuous acts of terrorism, what he described as a “general conspiracy to murder persons unknown until Canadians leave Muslim lands.”
As Jaser put it in one of the secretly recorded conversations: “We could easily say, ‘Let’s just do it one time, be a bit aggressive about it’ but I would rather be careful, just so I could live and have another opportunity.”
Or, as he said on another occasion: “Get out, get out, before we kill you all … I could care less who dies; everyone is a target.”
Ultimately, Jaser left the train conspiracy, Michaelson said — only because “he was afraid of being caught.”
He said it was true that Jaser and Esseghaier had their disagreements, but most were over religious doctrine. “They never disagreed on killing people,” Michaelson said evenly.
John Norris, Jaser’s lawyer, will address the jurors Thursday. Code may begin giving them instructions on the law by Friday.