A ringleader in the so-called 'Toronto 18' case who plotted mass-destruction bombings in the city's core and at an Ontario military base has been sentenced to life in prison.
Zakaria Amara's lawyer had asked for an 18- to 20-year sentence. The Crown had asked for life in prison.
"What this case revealed was spine chilling," said Justice Bruce Durno as he read aloud his decision in a Brampton, Ont. courthouse.
"It cannot be said these things happen only in other countries. These things happen here."
Earlier in the day, he had sentenced another bomb plotter -- Saad Gaya, 22 -- to a 12-year sentence.
Amara, 24, and Gaya were arrested in the summer of 2006 and have been in custody since that time. Amara will be eligible for parole in 2016, but will be under supervision for life. Gaya was given 7� years credit for pre-trial custody.
Amara and the others had been plotting to build truck bombs to detonate outside the Toronto Stock Exchange, the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service's offices in Toronto and at CFB Trenton.
In the spring of 2006, Amara had been working on detonators. Others had been given the responsibility of obtaining ammonium nitrate fertilizer, the same substance used in the 1995 blast in Oklahoma City that killed 168 people.
Police arrested Gaya and another man, Saad Khalid, as they unloaded a truck they thought was carrying three tonnes of ammonium nitrate. Khalid received a 14-year sentence in the fall.
The federal government is appealing that sentence, arguing Durno, also the sentencing judge, gave Khalid too much credit for time already served and should have ordered Khalid to serve at least half his sentence before being eligible for parole.
Amara, Gaya
Amara, a Jordanian-Cypriot, came to Canada in 1997, with his parents obtaining an Islamic divorce in 2003. He married Nada Farooq, who was 17, after being rejected in his pursuit of Islamic studies at a school in Saudi Arabia.
He worked pumping gas to provide for his wife and their infant daughter. Over this time, he started developing extremist views. Violent jihadi videos became a major source of entertainment, according to a psychiatrist's report prepared for Amara's sentencing.
Police had tape of Amara saying he wanted to mix shrapnel with the bomb to increase the carnage.
While Farooq defended her husband to CTV News after his arrest, the Globe and Mail found some Internet postings by her on Islamist websites that were very extremist in their own right.
Last week, Amara renounced his extremist views. "I promise that no matter how long it takes and how much it costs that I will produce actions that will hopefully outweigh the actions that I once took towards hurting others," he said.
"Give me a chance that one day I will be able to pay the moral debt I still owe."
Durno termed Gaya a helper in the plot.
"While the offender did not know how big the bombs were going to be ... he was willfully blind as to the likelihood that there would be death or serious bodily harm," he said.
"His degree of responsibility remains relatively high, albeit not as high as the others in the plot."
The Crown had sought a sentence of up to 18 years, while the defence had suggested nine to 15 years if the judge found an intent to kill on Gaya's part.
Gaya had said his motivation was to pressure Canada to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan.
Here's what's happened since the arrests:
- seven people have had their charges stayed or dropped
- four have pleaded guilty
- a young offender was found guilty
- one trial began last week
- five face a trial in March
With files from The Canadian Press
