A video of Canada's first terror plot, unearthed more than two years ago, has appeared on the internet, showing the alleged terrorists undergoing armed training to carry out the plot.
TORONTO: A video of Canada's first terror plot, unearthed more than two years ago, has appeared on the internet, showing the alleged terrorists undergoing armed training to carry out the plot.
In a major operation in June 2006, the Canadian police had unearthed what later came to be known as the Toronto-18 terror plot - because of the involvement of 18 people allegedly linked to the Al Qaeda.
The 18 plotters had allegedly planned to blow up the commercial hub of Toronto, and storm the nation's parliament in Ottawa to take leaders hostage and behead the prime minister.
To carry out the plot, they had allegedly undergone training in the use of firearms at a rural camp in northern Ontario in Dec 2005. A police mole blew the cover on the plot.
Of the 18 arrested, 10 are in jail and four on bail. The trial of three has been stayed.
The trial of the 18th person, a Hindu youth who converted to Islam, is now under way.
The two-and-half minute video, which was played in a local court at the trial of this youth earlier this year but banned from release, shows the masked plotters walking through snow for training in the wooded, secluded area of Ontario.
Waving black flags, they shout "Allahu Akbar" while undergoing armed training.
The video has been posted by the US-based Nine-Eleven Finding Answers Foundation which got it from a British court that watched it during the trial of a man who has now been convicted of terrorism.
While the prosecution says the video shows the dastardly designs of the alleged plotters, defence lawyers say these people were just "fantasists" rather than terrorists.
The trial court here will decide the fate of the Hindu convert youth next week. If he is found guilty, he will be the first person to be convicted in Canada after 9/11.
Though Canada passed a stringent anti-terror law after 9/11, no person has been convicted under it so far.
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