Ruling clears way for Khawaja trial
Judge upholds decision to keep some evidence secret; Ottawa terror suspect's trial to begin next month
Ian MacLeod
The Ottawa Citizen
Friday, May 02, 2008
After 1,494 days, the final pre-trial legal hurdle in the case of Momin Khawaja has been resolved, clearing the way for Canada's first prosecution of an accused Islamist terrorist.
Federal Court Judge Richard Mosley has upheld a federal government request under the Canada Evidence Act to keep secret several case documents containing RCMP information, on the grounds their release could harm national security and relations with foreign governments.
"I am satisfied that the information ... would not be of assistance to the defence in the underlying criminal proceedings and does not meet the low threshold of relevance," he wrote in a decision released yesterday.
The verdict, which defence lawyers say they will not appeal, ends 20 months of intense legal skirmishing between the government and Mr. Khawaja's lawyers over various issues, including constitutional fights arising from the fact Mr. Khawaja is the first Canadian to be charged under the new Criminal Code terrorism provisions created under the sweeping Anti-terrorism Act of 2001.
The software developer was working at Ottawa's Department of Foreign Affairs on March 29, 2004, when the Mounties walked in as part of an operation code-named Project Awaken.
Hours later, with Mr. Khawaja in custody and incommunicado, hundreds of British police and MI5 security service officers fanned out across London for the British end of what was known as Operation Crevice, then the largest counter-terrorism effort in British history.
They arrested several people and seized 600 kilograms of ammonium nitrate that was to be used in bombings against public sites in and around the British capital.
On April 30, 2007, five young British Muslims were handed life sentences in a London court for plotting to blow up a famous London nightclub, a 330-store shopping complex southeast of the city and parts of the country's electrical and natural gas system. Two others were acquitted.
Mr. Khawaja, now 29, was formally named by the British as a conspirator in the plot -- the London trial heard prosecution evidence that he was allegedly making bomb-detonating devices in the basement of his Orléans home -- but has never been charged with a crime there.
Instead, he is to stand trial before a judge alone in an Ottawa court beginning June 23. The case is expected to last for months and draw international media attention. The trial was originally to begin Jan. 2, 2007.
Mr. Khawaja has pleaded not guilty to seven offences related to participating in the activities of a terrorist group, financing of terrorism, facilitating a terrorist activity, the commission of an offence for a terrorist group and providing instructions to carry out activity for a terrorist group.
© The Ottawa Citizen 2008
source
No comments:
Post a Comment