*** It does appear he is a prime candidate for rehabilitation. Part of sentencing is to look at the mitigating factors, that is if we can take our blinders off. MS ***
FROM: http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20100519/saad-khalid-toronto18-appeal-100519/20100519?hub=Canada
Terrorism is the height of criminal behaviour -- eclipsing even first-degree murder -- and prison terms must reflect the severity of the offence, Crown lawyers will argue before Ontario's highest court.
The Crown is calling on the Ontario Court of Appeal to increase the sentence of Saad Khalid, a member of the so-called Toronto 18.
Khalid pleaded guilty last year to participating in a terror plot with the intention of causing an explosion. He was sentenced to 14 years, which amounts to seven more years in custody after credit for time served.
Court documents filed in advance of the hearing, scheduled for Thursday, show Crown lawyers will argue that is far too lenient for such a heinous crime.
"At present he will be eligible to walk free on parole five-and-a-half years after the date of his arrest, and be totally free of penal supervision four-and-a-half years later," the lawyers write.
"On the scale of relative severity, this crime is at the very apex, eclipsing even the most serious forms of ordinary criminal violence."
The Crown argues the starting point for sentencing for active participation in a terrorist plot intent on causing death and "indiscriminate harm" to hundreds of innocent people should be life imprisonment.
Khalid was not the leader of the plot he was convicted in, so in this case the Crown says a further four to six years should be added to Khalid's sentence, making it 18 to 20, which they had asked for at the sentencing hearing.
"The moral blameworthiness and potential impact of this crime are an order of magnitude greater than that found in a single pre-meditated homicide, for which a life sentence is automatic," the Crown writes.
"It is just and proportionate that an individual who plots a crime as this will be permanently under the supervision of the state."
The Crown also contends the trial judge erred in not making an order under the Criminal Code for terrorism offences that the offender has to serve half the sentence or 10 years, whichever is less, before being released on full parole.
Khalid's lawyers suggest in court documents that the trial judge didn't actually make any errors in sentencing, rather the Crown just didn't get their way.
"Ultimately the appellant's complaint amounts to no more than that they believe the respondent's sentence was not long enough," his lawyers write.
There were plenty of mitigating factors that justify Khalid's sentence length, his lawyers write.
He was young -- 19 years old -- at the time of the offence, he pleaded guilty, and he demonstrated sincere remorse, they note. A psychiatrist found he poses no acute risk to himself or others and he has sought out spiritual counselling to understand and change his thinking.
"At the time he was sentenced, he was not the same person he was when he committed the offence," his lawyers write.
He has received a great deal of support from the community, has two offers of immediate employment upon his release and 64 relatives, friends and acquaintances have contributed more than $63,000 to an educational trust fund, his lawyers say.
Showing posts with label Saad Khalid. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Saad Khalid. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
SIX REMAINING ACCUSED TO FACE TRIAL IN TORONTO 18
FROM: http://www.cp24.com/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20091229/091229_terror_trial/20091229/?hub=CP24Home
Remaining six alleged Toronto 18 members face trials in 2010 on terror charges
TORONTO — The case of Canada's notorious homegrown terror plot enters a significant phase in 2010 with the trials upcoming for the final six alleged members, accused of attending a training camp and plotting to bomb various targets.
The prosecution of the so-called Toronto 18 seemed on shaky ground at the start of this year, with seven people no longer facing charges and one conviction of a youth characterized as a peripheral member.
"Some people, I think on the basis of that set of events, leapt to the conclusion that maybe the government's case was falling apart, maybe there wasn't a serious plot here at all," said security and intelligence expert Wesley Wark.
But then came four surprise guilty pleas in fairly quick succession, with each of the young men admitting to roles in the plot to detonate bombs outside the Toronto Stock Exchange and CSIS headquarters, as well as an unnamed Ontario military base in 2006.
What Wark found unexpected was not that some of the 18 people arrested would plead or eventually be found guilty, but the facts that they admitted to in court.
"The thing that did surprise me was simply some of the details that emerged about the seriousness about the plot itself and the seeming capabilities of some of the key individuals involved," said the professor at the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto.
Video evidence made public in October shows the dancing wires of a cellphone bomb detonator on a tape made by Zakaria Amara, 24, a leader of the plot who pleaded guilty.
The RCMP also made a video demonstrating the massive destructive power of what kind of damage a truck bomb using one tonne of ammonium nitrate could do. Saad Gaya, 22, and Saad Khalid, 23, who have pleaded guilty, were arrested unloading bags labelled "ammonium nitrate" from a truck driven by an undercover police officer.
Court heard Amara planned to rent U-Haul trucks, pack them with explosives and detonate them via remote control in downtown Toronto. Amara also planned to put metal chips in bombs to exact more casualties in what they called the "Battle of Toronto."
The goal of the planned destruction and carnage was to pressure Canada to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, Gaya told police in his post-arrest interview.
The judge in the youth's case, in handing down his ruling, said there clearly was a homegrown Islamic terrorist cell bent on wreaking havoc and bloodshed in Canada.
The Crown has alleged some of the men held a terrorism training camp north of Toronto and that others were involved in the bomb plot.
One of the remaining men is expected to have his trial by judge in January, while the other five men's case is expected to be put in front of a jury starting in March.
The guilty pleas and the outcome of the first man's trial will have absolutely no bearing on the last five men's case, said lawyer William Naylor, who represents the man who will stand trial in January.
"The people that are going to get tried, their case has nothing to do with the people who pleaded guilty," Naylor said.
"The outcome of Mr. Gaya, Mr. Khalid, Mr. Amara and my client has nothing whatsoever to do with the remaining accused."
The fact that those five men have elected trial by jury is breaking new ground. This is the first time an Anti-Terrorism Act case will be tried by a jury, Wark said.
"This will be something new, to see how juries are selected, how juries respond to the evidence, what the outcome of jury trials might be when it comes to terrorism offences," he said.
How those found guilty of such offences are sentenced and what credit is given for time already served should also become clearer in 2010.
The youth walked free after being sentenced to 2 1/2 years due to time served. Khalid was sentenced to 14 years, with seven years' credit for time served, though the government is appealing the sentence.
Ali Dirie, 26, was sentenced to seven years, with five years' credit for time served. Gaya and Amara are expected to be sentenced in January. No one has yet been sentenced to life in prison, the maximum sentence under the anti-terror law.
All of the six men awaiting trial have been in custody since their arrests in June 2006, except for one, who was granted bail in August.
Remaining six alleged Toronto 18 members face trials in 2010 on terror charges
TORONTO — The case of Canada's notorious homegrown terror plot enters a significant phase in 2010 with the trials upcoming for the final six alleged members, accused of attending a training camp and plotting to bomb various targets.
The prosecution of the so-called Toronto 18 seemed on shaky ground at the start of this year, with seven people no longer facing charges and one conviction of a youth characterized as a peripheral member.
"Some people, I think on the basis of that set of events, leapt to the conclusion that maybe the government's case was falling apart, maybe there wasn't a serious plot here at all," said security and intelligence expert Wesley Wark.
But then came four surprise guilty pleas in fairly quick succession, with each of the young men admitting to roles in the plot to detonate bombs outside the Toronto Stock Exchange and CSIS headquarters, as well as an unnamed Ontario military base in 2006.
What Wark found unexpected was not that some of the 18 people arrested would plead or eventually be found guilty, but the facts that they admitted to in court.
"The thing that did surprise me was simply some of the details that emerged about the seriousness about the plot itself and the seeming capabilities of some of the key individuals involved," said the professor at the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto.
Video evidence made public in October shows the dancing wires of a cellphone bomb detonator on a tape made by Zakaria Amara, 24, a leader of the plot who pleaded guilty.
The RCMP also made a video demonstrating the massive destructive power of what kind of damage a truck bomb using one tonne of ammonium nitrate could do. Saad Gaya, 22, and Saad Khalid, 23, who have pleaded guilty, were arrested unloading bags labelled "ammonium nitrate" from a truck driven by an undercover police officer.
Court heard Amara planned to rent U-Haul trucks, pack them with explosives and detonate them via remote control in downtown Toronto. Amara also planned to put metal chips in bombs to exact more casualties in what they called the "Battle of Toronto."
The goal of the planned destruction and carnage was to pressure Canada to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, Gaya told police in his post-arrest interview.
The judge in the youth's case, in handing down his ruling, said there clearly was a homegrown Islamic terrorist cell bent on wreaking havoc and bloodshed in Canada.
The Crown has alleged some of the men held a terrorism training camp north of Toronto and that others were involved in the bomb plot.
One of the remaining men is expected to have his trial by judge in January, while the other five men's case is expected to be put in front of a jury starting in March.
The guilty pleas and the outcome of the first man's trial will have absolutely no bearing on the last five men's case, said lawyer William Naylor, who represents the man who will stand trial in January.
"The people that are going to get tried, their case has nothing to do with the people who pleaded guilty," Naylor said.
"The outcome of Mr. Gaya, Mr. Khalid, Mr. Amara and my client has nothing whatsoever to do with the remaining accused."
The fact that those five men have elected trial by jury is breaking new ground. This is the first time an Anti-Terrorism Act case will be tried by a jury, Wark said.
"This will be something new, to see how juries are selected, how juries respond to the evidence, what the outcome of jury trials might be when it comes to terrorism offences," he said.
How those found guilty of such offences are sentenced and what credit is given for time already served should also become clearer in 2010.
The youth walked free after being sentenced to 2 1/2 years due to time served. Khalid was sentenced to 14 years, with seven years' credit for time served, though the government is appealing the sentence.
Ali Dirie, 26, was sentenced to seven years, with five years' credit for time served. Gaya and Amara are expected to be sentenced in January. No one has yet been sentenced to life in prison, the maximum sentence under the anti-terror law.
All of the six men awaiting trial have been in custody since their arrests in June 2006, except for one, who was granted bail in August.
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