Toronto 18 Ringleader Ordered Detained Until End Of Sentence

A ringleader of the so-called Toronto 18 terror cell continues to minimize his role in the deadly plot and can't guarantee he has the support to manage his return to society, officials said in upholding an order for his detention.

 

The Parole Board of Canada said in a recent decision that not enough has changed to justify revoking an order to detain Fahim Ahmad until the end of his sentence.

 

"The minimization, equivocation, and continued attempts to deceive and manipulate do not allow the board to conclude that there has been any, let alone sufficient, change in your risk in the last year to do other than confirm the detention order," the two-member panel wrote.

 

"The board also notes that the proposed plan to support your release and manage the risk you present in the community is not even certain to come into being," it wrote, noting there was no agreement on funding for the plan and no backup plan in case it fell through.

 

The Toronto 18 plotted to blow up the Parliament buildings, kill the prime minister and take members of parliament hostage. They were rounded up in the summer of 2006 in an anti-terrorist operation that made headlines around the world.

 

Ahmad, now 32, pleaded guilty in the middle of his 2010 trial to participating in a terrorist group, importing firearms and instructing his co-accused to carry out an activity for a terrorist group.

 

He was sentenced to 16 years in prison but received a credit of 8 1/2 years for the more than four years he spent in custody awaiting trial. 

 

 

Ahmad was scheduled for statutory release after serving two-thirds of that sentence but the parole board ruled in 2015 that he should stay behind bars.

 

After meeting with him to review that order, the board found that many of its earlier misgivings about Ahmad were still relevant.

 

The panellists questioned discrepancies between what Ahmad told a psychologist who assessed him last year and what he told them, particularly regarding his role in planning the attack.

 

"You equivocated between the two positions to the point that it became unclear which one you truly believed, leading the board to conclude that you were telling the board and the psychologist what you felt at the time each wanted to hear," they said.

 

"This indicated a continuation of your ability to use deception and manipulation to further your own ends, consistent with your offence cycle."

 

The board also noted that Ahmad's plan for his release — which involved staying at a Toronto halfway house and having his interactions monitored — included aspects that would be hard to enforce.

 

For one, the plan would allow Ahmad to attend mosques that were approved by the Correctional Service of Canada, and it would be difficult for someone who is not Muslim and doesn't speak Arabic to assess the facilities and keep track of what Ahmad discussed with whim, the board said.

 

 

 

Ahmad has previously said that his interest in Islam grew out of the growing public distrust of Muslims, and that he quickly got sucked into online discussions that merged religion and politics and carried over into the mosque.

 

The Toronto 18's other ringleader, Zakaria Amara, was sentenced in 2010 to life in prison with no chance of parole until 2016.

 

He and Ahmad had a falling out and Amara formed a separate group in 2006, which managed to get further along in its plans to bomb the Toronto Stock Exchange, CSIS offices in Toronto and an eastern Ontario military base.

 

Of the 18 people charged, seven had their charges dropped or stayed, four were found guilty and seven pleaded guilty.