‘The truth has to come out’
VIA terror suspect was ‘nice guy,’ friend says
The last time Mohamed Ali had coffee with Raed Jaser, his friend said, “I’ll see you later today.”
But that afternoon, Jaser would be arrested at a moving company where he’d worked with a brotherin-law, handcuffed and loaded into a police cruiser.
Jaser, 35, was charged last month with plotting a terrorist attack on a VIA Rail passenger train in what police called Canada’s first “Al Qaeda-sponsored” attack.
Also charged was Chiheb Esseghaier, 30, of Montreal, who Ali recalled meeting outside the same Scarborough mosque where he got to know Jaser.
Jaser brought Esseghaier to the Willowdale mosque last December, introducing him as a friend, said Ali, 32.
“He was a very nice guy, very in- telligent, very humble,” Ali recalled.
Few details have emerged about the link between the two men and Ali’s recollections mark the first that put them together. Esseghaier is accused of participating in terrorist activity up until mid-February, while Jaser’s alleged illegal activity stopped last September.
Outside the mosque last winter is the only time Ali saw Esseghaier, he said.
Ali and Jaser met occasionally for coffee to chat. Ali said Jaser had brought up jihad and radicalism, but he’d never imagined his friend was at all serious.
“Every so often he’d talk about radicalism and that,” said Ali. “I just thought it was coffee talk.”
When he heard that Jaser was facing five charges, including conspiring with a terrorist group, “I was shocked,” said Ali.
But Ali said Jaser had been asked to leave another mosque he’d previously attended after raising fears that he was trying to radicalize youth. “He tried to start a radical circle and they told him they didn’t want that and asked him to leave,” Ali said. Contrary to some media reports, Ali is not the imam at the mosque where they all met, though he sometimes leads prayer when the regular imam is away. He said he chose to speak publicly about Jaser and Esseghaier because he believes people “have to know.” “It’s important to know the truth, the truth has to come out,” said Ali. Jaser, of Palestinian origin, arrived in Canada with his family 20 years ago and until his arrest lived with his family near Finch Ave. and Highway 404. Esseghaier, a Tunisian national, began working toward a doctorate at the National Institute for Scientific Research near Montreal in 2010, including travel to international conferences to speak about his field of research, biosensors. Both will remain in custody until bail hearings in early summer. With Toronto Star files