Thaindian News

Toronto, Oct 3 (IANS) A Canadian Muslim, who was part of the 18-member terrorist plot to carry out mayhem in Canada three years ago, was Friday jailed for seven years.
A court in the Indian-dominated city of Brampton on the outskirts of Toronto sentenced Ali Mohamed Dirie, 26, for his role in the so-called Toronto-18 terror plot. The plot was unearthed in June 2006, with arrest of 18 Canadian Muslims allegedly linked to Al-Qaeda which wants Canada to leave Afghanistan.

The plotters had planned to blow up the Toronto Stock Exchange and offices of the Canadian spy agency and storm parliament in Ottawa to take leaders hostage and behead the prime minister.

To carry out the plot, they had undergone training in firearms at a rural camp in December 2005. A police mole blew the cover on the plot. Most plotters were of Pakistani origin and came from the Toronto suburb of Mississauga which has the biggest concentration of Muslims in the country.

Ail Mohammed Dirie, who was sentenced Friday, is a Somali-born Canadian. He is the third terrorist to be convicted in the case which continues. Dirie admitted to smuggling handguns and ammunition into Canada for the terror group to carry out their plot.

Convicting him, Justice Bruce Durno said, “Terrorism offences strike at the heart of Canadian values and society.

“The intentions were to use loaded guns to attempt to effect change in Canada’s foreign policy, to resort to violence to protest violence, to use guns and not ballots to effect change, and to commit violent acts.”

But the terrorist will be out of jail by 2011 as the judge considered five years that he has already spent in jail since his arrest in June 2006. Though Canada enacted a tougher Anti-Terrorist Act after 9/11, sentences under this law are much milder compared to those under similar laws in the US and elsewhere.