Jihadist Bound

Momin Khawaja aspired to become an honourable jihadist, battling the infidels in Afghanistan, coming to the aid of his embattled brethren. As a Canadian, a young man living in an affluent neighbourhood in the country's capital, and enjoying all the privileges of a free society unencumbered by strictures related to religion, customs, politics, ethnic strife, he yet chafed at the assaults his co-religionists suffered through the auspices of the very country he lived in.

He dreamed of becoming an avenger, a Muslim jihadist, one who would pledge himself to joining the battle of the believer, those who submit to Islam and the edict to resist unjustness. One supposes that, at no time, did he aspire to live in Afghanistan under the Taliban, there to become one with the fundamentalism of the ruling mullahs. And claim friendly co-operation with the forces of al-Qaeda against those of the insolently insulting West.

He wrote messages through a series of explanatory emails to a fiancee that he quite recognized the efficacy and needfulness of sacrificing the lives of countless civilians to the cause of instilling fear in Western society for the end purpose of achieving militant Islam's aims. No price in human lives might be considered too dear a price to pay in support of Islamic rule and justice.

He made contact with incipiently-aspiring jihadists through the Internet. And conspired with a group in Great Britain to deliver an indelible message of Islamic anger. Travelling repeatedly to London from his home in Ottawa, to confer and plan with his co-jihadists, all of them intrigued with the possibilities and potential inherent in applying themselves to delivering that message.

In his defence, his lawyer has laid out a trajectory of overtures leading to the hope of travelling to Afghanistan to join the resistance. To become a member of the Islamist defence against the incursion of foreign armies in that country. Since his objective was to join the Afghan Taliban to fight against the forces of NATO, the accused could not logically and legally be accused of plotting to blow up civilian sites in London.

Great Britain has long since taken Momin Khawaja's co-conspirator's to trial and finding them guilty, sentencing them to life in prison. The country would have sought extradition from Canada for Mr. Khawaja, but was persuaded to allow him to remain in Canada, so that this country could undertake its first substantial terrorist proceedings. Put to trial in Great Britain he would have shared the guilty verdict of his fellow jihadists.

His lawyer in Canada, Lawrence Greenspon, loves a legal challenge, and he is determined to persuade the presiding judge, Ontario Superior Court Justice Douglas Rutherford, that the case against Mr. Khawaja should be dismissed. For lack of evidence that his client really was involved in the plans to bomb popular London shopping and night-spot areas, to murder and mutilate as many innocents as possible.

The explosives device he was working on at home in Ottawa, and of which he wrote and spoke often to his London-domiciled jihadist friends, was totally innocent of plans for use there. He planned, his lawyer contends, to fight in Afghanistan, and for that purpose attended a training camp in Pakistan; he had no intention, nor knowledge of the London bombing plans.

Momin Khawaja, so solidly implicated as a co-conspirator for a number of planned terrorist attacks to take place in London, is said to be totally innocent of intent by his lawyer. The device he was working on, to improvise an explosives trigger, discovered at his Ottawa home along with much other incriminating evidence, is simply incidental.

That this man was incapable of reaching the required technical proficiency to create a useful working model with sufficient power to trigger an explosion is one thing. That his intent to achieve success for the purpose of incendiary violence is another altogether. He encouraged and he funded the exercise he is claimed to be innocent of.

That he felt a deep desire to travel to Afghanistan to fight Canadian soldiers stationed there, does not necessarily rule out his determination to aid and assist his fellow jihadists in their plans to explode bombs in London.