Khawaja 'mortal enemy' of the West: Crown prosecutor
Mohammad Momin Khawaja's "special ideological brand of hatred" led him to plot a terrorist attack with like-minded extremists in Britain, says a federal prosecutor.
As he began to summarize his case in Ottawa Tuesday, Crown attorney David McKercher said there's no doubt the Ottawa software developer should be convicted of the charges against him.
"He meant to become the West's mortal enemy," McKercher told the Ontario Superior Court. "It was his intention to bring death and destruction to the West."
Khawaja, arrested more than four years ago, faces seven charges of financing and facilitating terrorism, including the key allegation that he built a remote-control device for use in bomb attacks planned — but never executed — by Islamic extremists in the United Kingdom.
Five alleged co-conspirators were convicted in London last year. Their targets of choice were said to include a nightclub, shopping centre and electric and gas facilities, but the scheme was foiled by British authorities.
Khawaja, who has pleaded not guilty to all charges, has been on trial before Justice Douglas Rutherford without a jury since June.
McKercher presented five weeks of evidence over the summer in what is seen as a crucial test of Canada's Anti-Terrorism Act, swiftly passed in the weeks following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
Khawaja had no direct knowledge of plot: defence
In his summary, slated to continue Wednesday, McKercher outlined the activities, meetings and communications of a large cast of individuals, including the U.K. conspirators, and painted a broad picture of Khawaja's alleged involvement.
McKercher allowed that some of the evidence is confusing, given the desire of extremists to avoid detection through clandestine techniques — such as leaving draft e-mails in computer accounts without taking the risk of sending the messages, knowing that fellow plotters will log on later and read them.
"We're dealing with a shadowy world whose hallmark is subterfuge," McKercher said.
The prosecution's star witness, Mohammed Babar, a former al-Qaeda operative turned police informant, has testified that Khawaja attended a training camp in Pakistan in 2003. He also claimed Khawaja acted as a courier to deliver money and supplies and discussed various potential operations.
The RCMP says it discovered the remote-control trigger, dubbed the Hi-Fi Digimonster, in a raid on Khawaja's home in suburban east Ottawa along with enough components to suggest the accused may have been planning to build more devices.
Evidence gathered by the British security agency MI-5 indicated Khawaja visited people involved in the U.K. plot and discussed remote-control technology with them.
McKercher painstakingly dissected electronic intercepts collected in Britain to bolster his contention that Khawaja was an instrumental player in the operation who must have known his device would be used to sow urban terror.
Defence lawyer Lawrence Greenspon contends the plotters talked about the London assault only in Khawaja's absence, meaning he had no direct knowledge of the actual scheme.
"There's no talk about any of that when Momin is there," he said outside the courtroom.
Further, Khawaja attended the training camp in Pakistan with the aim of going to fight Western forces in Afghanistan — not to bomb civilian targets in Britain, Greenspon argues.
"You don't go and train in northern Pakistan with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenade launchers to attack central London," he said Tuesday.
"You do [these kinds of things] if your intent is to go and be a soldier in Afghanistan. And that intent, I think, is clear."
On Monday, Rutherford rejected Greenspon's motion to throw out the case due to lack of evidence.
Greenspon did not call Khawaja — or others — to testify in his defence despite speculation the accused might appear in the witness box.
There is already plenty of information on the record about his client's actions, Greenspon said.
"There simply is no reason to put Mr. Khawaja [in the box] or, for that matter, call any other evidence," he said. "The essential elements of the defence are before the court."