Source: Globe & Mail - 25-Sep-08

BRAMPTON, Ont. - An Ontario judge has found a young extremist guilty of a designated terrorist offence in a key test of federal laws.

While asked to pronounce on only one suspect, Mr. Justice John Sproat ruled that the evidence a wider terrorist group existed "is overwhelming."

"I am satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that [the accused] by his participation and contribution intended to enhance the ability of the terrorist group to facilitate or carry out a terrorist activity.

"I therefore find [the accused] guilty as charged," the judge said in his 94-page ruling, as the young man's mother wept quietly in the back of the court.

The suspect – a 20-year-old who converted from Hinduism to Islam a few years ago and whose name cannot be published – faced a charge of "participating in terrorist activity." In court he was portrayed as a high-school misfit who had fallen in with other extremists, including 10 alleged adult co-conspirators whose own trials remain months or years away.

Source: National Post - 7-Aug-08 

A 20-year-old convert to Islam was unaware of an alleged nefarious plot to "cripple Canada" even though the scheme was nothing more than an unrealistic "delusion," a court heard Thursday.

Mitchell Chernovsky who is defending a suspected terrorist before court, said his client could not have agreed to the alleged conspiracy because the plan was a fantasy "with zero probability."

It was dreamed up by a self-aggrandizing liar who was gathering acolytes to pay attention to his ranting and play Mujahideen, he said in his closing arguments.

"The lies that [the alleged leader] told were quite indiscriminate. They never ceased from start to end. He lied to anybody and everybody."