Toronto and Ottawa — An Ottawa man who did contract computer work for Canada's Foreign Affairs Department faces terrorism charges after raids executed in Canada and Britain resulted in the arrests of nine men of Pakistani heritage.
While British police seized explosives ingredients and arrested eight men, the Mounties yesterday laid two terrorism criminal charges — understood to be the first such charges laid in Canada since powerful new security laws were passed in December, 2001 — against 24-year-old Mohammad Momin Khawaja of Ottawa.
Armed Canadian tactical officers with battering rams raided his family home in the quiet Ottawa suburb of Orleans on Monday. RCMP officers also said they executed a warrant at Mr. Khawaja's workplace, where they arrested him.
The London operation included 700 police officers who raided 24 separate locations and seized the chemical ammonium nitrate fertilizer, which police fear could have been used in a massive car bomb.
Qasim Khawaja, brother of a man who was arrested after police stormed a house near Ottawa on Monday, answers a question outside his family's home on Tuesday. (Jeff Bassett/CP)
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Officials from Scotland Yard and the RCMP would not say how or if the raids tied together. But the Mounties said in a statement that Mr. Khawaja was part of a conspiracy that was hatched in both London and Ottawa, and took shape some time after Nov. 10 before it was thwarted this week.
Specifically, Mr. Khawaja was charged with knowingly participating in a terrorist group and knowingly facilitating a terrorist activity. If convicted of these new Criminal Code charges, he could face up to 14 years in jail. The trial will be a closely watched test case of Canada's security laws.
A Canadian government official said that Mohammad Momin Khawaja performed "mundane" contract computer work for the Foreign Affairs Department for perhaps six to eight months. The official said he was not working on any secure systems and he was not working at the department's headquarters.
"We're not at all worried about this," in terms of any security breach, the official said.
His arrest follows a number of controversial cases involving Muslim Canadians, some of which have fallen apart in a very public manner.
These cases include the U.S. deportation of Ottawa's Maher Arar to Syria, and also bogus terrorism allegations made against a group of illegal Pakistani immigrants in Toronto.
The cases have caused members of Canada's Islamic community to express fears about being targeted.
But the Mounties say the new case, the first terrorism allegations to result in Criminal Code charges in Canada since the new laws were passed, is about legitimate security fears.
"The RCMP has a zero-tolerance policy toward racial profiling and racially biased policing," they said. ".....The actions taken yesterday were directed at criminal activity with respect to national security."
Contacted by The Globe and Mail last night, Mr. Khawaja's brother expressed shock when read the RCMP statement. "I guess it's going to be like a precedent or something," Qasim Khawaja, 26, said. "I guess they [the Mounties] have a very vivid imagination," he said.
Qasim said earlier that his younger brother is innocent of any wrongdoing and that his family has been traumatized by the raid on their home, where they have lived for more than a decade. "They asked me if I had technology there [to make a bomb]," he said, adding that "they turned everything upside down."
He did say police asked a lot of questions about his brother, who he said went to England "probably a couple of months ago."
"He was trying to find a wife," Qasim said. "We have relatives over there and, as far as I know, he was trying to find a bit of a match."
The RCMP said that Mohammad Momin Khawaja was its only target, even though other members of the family were initially detained. The RCMP said family members were taken away from the home in a bid to preserve the integrity of the scene. Family members said the house had been picked clean of papers and computers.
The brothers are part of a large family, with four brothers and a sister fathered by Mahboob Khawaja.From Saudi Arabia on Monday, he told a reporter that the raid on his family home was "a hoax to create embarrassment." The family's mother, 52-year-old Azra Khawaja, was picked up by the RCMP Monday while she was shopping at the grocery store.
The raid in Canada coincided with another raid of eight terror suspects in Britain, where a sweep involving hundreds of officers arrested the suspects and seized about half a tonne of ammonium nitrate, an ingredient commonly used to make bombs. But officials in Ottawa would not say yesterday whether there was any link between the two raids.
Qasim, the brother, said he was watching television with his oldest sister in their family home Monday afternoon at 1:30 p.m. when about 20 heavily armed RCMP officers crashed through the front door.Qasim, a computer entrepreneur who had dark circles under his eyes, said his family members were interrogated individually. Police took computers, computer files and their passports, he said.
He said he was questioned for more than seven hours before he was released yesterday.
Friends of the family expressed shock at the allegations. "They are very peaceful kind of people," said Qamar Masood, a family friend and president of the Canada-Pakistan Association of the National Capital Region.
"It looks like nobody is secure any more," he said. "You don't know when somebody can barge inside your home. ..... Maybe there was a misunderstanding down the line, who knows what it is? It remains to be seen."
With reports from Drew Fagan in Ottawa and Mary Nersessian in Toronto
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