Canadian allegedly attended terrorist training camp
1:00 AM
Posted: Wednesday, June 25, 2008
TORONTO (AP) -- A Canadian man charged with participating in a plot to bomb British buildings allegedly attended a terrorist training camp with the plot's ringleader, a key witness testified Tuesday.
Mohammed Babar, the prosecution's star witness at Momin Khawaja's terrorism trial, testified Tuesday that he drove the former software designer partway to the camp in northern Pakistan along with Omar Khyam.
Khyam is one of five British Muslims of Pakistani descent convicted last year of conspiring to bomb a nightclub, shopping center and electrical and gas facilities in Britain in 2004. Khawaja, 29, a Canadian citizen also of Pakistani descent, is currently facing seven charges in Canada related the plot. He pleaded innocent in Ontario Superior Court.
Babar testified that Khawaja spent three or four days at the camp in the summer of 2003 and was "very excited" upon his return that he had learned to fire an AK-47 assault rifle, a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and a light machine-gun.
Babar, 33, is a one-time al-Qaida operative turned police informer. He has pleaded guilty in the U.S. to charges of aiding al-Qaida and is hoping for sentencing leniency in return for his cooperation.
Defense attorney Lawrence Greenspon argued that much of Barbar's testimony has consisted of unrelated activities that have not been linked to Khawaja.
The apparent aim, said Greenspon, is to "make the U.K. bomb plot much larger and encompass everything."
Although British authorities said Khawaja provided technical help with detonators in the British plot, they did not charge him.
He was charged in Canada under the Anti-Terrorism Act, which was passed by Parliament as a response to the Sept. 11, terror attacks in the United States.
Mohammed Babar, the prosecution's star witness at Momin Khawaja's terrorism trial, testified Tuesday that he drove the former software designer partway to the camp in northern Pakistan along with Omar Khyam.
Khyam is one of five British Muslims of Pakistani descent convicted last year of conspiring to bomb a nightclub, shopping center and electrical and gas facilities in Britain in 2004. Khawaja, 29, a Canadian citizen also of Pakistani descent, is currently facing seven charges in Canada related the plot. He pleaded innocent in Ontario Superior Court.
Babar testified that Khawaja spent three or four days at the camp in the summer of 2003 and was "very excited" upon his return that he had learned to fire an AK-47 assault rifle, a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and a light machine-gun.
Babar, 33, is a one-time al-Qaida operative turned police informer. He has pleaded guilty in the U.S. to charges of aiding al-Qaida and is hoping for sentencing leniency in return for his cooperation.
Defense attorney Lawrence Greenspon argued that much of Barbar's testimony has consisted of unrelated activities that have not been linked to Khawaja.
The apparent aim, said Greenspon, is to "make the U.K. bomb plot much larger and encompass everything."
Although British authorities said Khawaja provided technical help with detonators in the British plot, they did not charge him.
He was charged in Canada under the Anti-Terrorism Act, which was passed by Parliament as a response to the Sept. 11, terror attacks in the United States.
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