PING!
Posted on 09/05/2006 9:37:08 AM PDT by GMMAC
Part 2 of National Post's series:
"The path to terror in Canada"
Terror suspect's bride: 'I'm shocked'
Stewart Bell
National Post
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Three months after the RCMP began arresting 18 suspects accused of plotting terror attacks in Canada, an investigation by the National Post has uncovered a web of links to Pakistan. Today, in the second of four parts, an exclusive interview with the Pakistani bride of Toronto terror suspect Jahmaal James.
LAHORE, Pakistan - There are plastic flowers on the walls, a small computer on the table beneath the window and a curtain for a door. For four months and 10 days, accused Canadian terrorist Jahmaal James lived in this dingy bedroom in Pakistan's cultural capital.
His copy of a Toronto-published book called How to Pray, an illustrated guide to performing Muslim rituals, still sits in the room.
That is not all he left behind.
Sima James, the woman he married in a colourful ceremony in Lahore 10 months ago, is a 25-year-old with big brown eyes and the head-to-toe black dress of a conservative Muslim woman.
"He was a good person -- simple, nice," she told the National Post in her first interview, one of the rare times a wife of any of the 18 suspects arrested in alleged Canadian terror plots has spoken to the media.
A follower of Imam Ali Hindy's preachings at the Salaheddin Islamic Centre in Scarborough, where several known and suspected terrorists have worshipped, Mr. James flew to Lahore last November.
By his family's account, he went to Pakistan to consecrate an arranged marriage. But Crown prosecutors allege Mr. James had something else in mind: training for terror.
During his stay, he allegedly travelled north to the village of Balakot to attend a training camp run by Islamist militants. The Post has learned Mr. James allegedly received a week of small-arms training.
He was also seen in the company of senior members of the al-Qaeda-linked militant group Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, and at one point was questioned by Pakistani authorities.
"Our intelligence and law enforcement agencies are co-operating with the Canadian government," said Brigadier General Javed Cheema, a Pakistani counterterrorism official.
The travels of Mr. James are part of a web of links that tie Pakistan to the alleged plot by Toronto-based Islamic extremists to storm Parliament Hill and set off truck bombs in downtown Toronto.
While the Toronto plot has been widely described as the work of "homegrown" Canadian terrorists, the Pakistani connection has investigators probing the extent to which the group was influenced by the South Asian nation's rampant radicalism.
Counterterrorism authorities in Britain, the United States and Australia have been turning up similar links between domestic terror plots and Pakistan, particularly to Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, an emerging player in the global jihad.
Sitting on a sofa opposite her husband's neatly made bed, Mrs. James said she had no idea the man she married had been accused of taking part in a Toronto-based terrorist group.
"I'm shocked," said Mrs. James, whose family runs a Lahore poultry business. "I don't know what happened, really I don't, and I don't believe this. My husband don't do this. I know."
Mrs. James denies her husband had any contact with groups such as Lashkar-e-Tayyiba or its Lahore-based affiliate, Jamaat ud Dawa, during the time she spent with him.
In fact, she says, he hardly ever left his room. They met through Mrs. James' uncle, Mohammad Al Attique. A Canadian who owns an Islamic publishing house that sells Korans and prayer guides, Mr. Attique occasionally travels home to Lahore, where he has a bookshop in addition to outlets in Scarborough and Saudi Arabia.
On a visit to Lahore last year, "Uncle Attique" and Mrs. James' father decided it was time for her to wed. Mr. Attique promised to search for a suitor.
Upon his return to Toronto, Mr. Attique spoke to Mr. James about it. Both men worshipped at the Salaheddin mosque and Mr. James had expressed an interest in finding a Muslim bride.
Photos of Mr. James soon landed in Sima's e-mail inbox, and she looked at them on the computer in her grandmother's bedroom. Mrs. James' family gave their consent. "They said, 'OK, we trust you.' They said, 'Go ahead, trust in God and go ahead,' " said Mr. Attique.
Before leaving for Pakistan, Mr. James consulted with his imam. "He's a very nice guy, you know. He came to me to ask about getting married," Mr. Hindy told the Post in June, adding Pakistani authorities briefly detained Mr. James at the airport during the trip and that he knew RCMP and Canadian Security Intelligence Service investigators were watching him.
In an interview, Mr. Attique said he encouraged Mr. James to enroll at an Islamic institute in Lahore. "I asked him to go to Lahore, any institute, to learn something."
But Mr. James was scared, he said. Following revelations that several terror suspects arrested in the West had studied at Pakistan's hardline religious schools, President Pervez Musharraf was expelling foreigners from such schools.
"He said, 'No, if I go Musharraf will catch me because he is against the foreigners. He is catching nowadays the foreigners and he put in the jail.' "So he never went, although I ask him because there was in my mind he should not waste his time, he should study."
Dozens of schools in Lahore are controlled by Jamaat ud Dawa, widely considered a front for the outlawed Lashkar-e-Tayyiba. But Mr. Attique said he did not direct Mr. James to any particular school.
"Any institute, there are so many institutes in Lahore, he can join any institute but he basically refused, he never asked me 'which institute I should go,' he said, 'No, the situation is not good, so I came here and I married and I enjoyed my day and go back.'"
The couple met for the first time on Nov. 9, 2005. The wedding was the next day. Mrs. James wore heavy makeup and a traditional dress. Mr. James wore a white robe, checkered kaffiyah and gold and silver tinsel garlands. It was a big family affair, with Mrs. James' six siblings (three sisters, three brothers), her parents and "aunties." She said there was nobody at the wedding dinner from Lashkar-e-Tayyiba.
Mr. Attique said his family in Pakistan is not involved with Lashkar. "My large family are not religious and they have no relation with Lashkar-e-Tayyiba, or any other. I know this personally."
According to Mrs. James, the day after the wedding, Mr. James retired to the matrimonial bedroom at the family's home in Lahore's Sanda neighbourhood and hardly left for the next four months.
"He just stay in his room," she said, speaking in the English she has learned in the past year. "He just sit and lie down.
"He no go anywhere."
He complained of stomach pains, which she thought were caused by the food, and refused to go outside because the foul Lahore air would make him cough, she said. "He don't like the lights. I close the door and he just sit and we talk."
The family would sometimes summon Mr. James to sit with them on the second-floor patio of their rented home, but he would decline, saying it would only set off his coughing.
The newlyweds spent their days in the bedroom. He would teach her English; she would teach him Islam.
"He was in the initial stages of learning the holy Koran," she said, adding Mr. James knew only "a little" about the Muslim faith.
Their chats improved as she learned English with the help of a local language academy. But she said he hardly talked about his life in Toronto.
"He just say he do work and he stay with his father and maybe he arrange for me to come to Canada, maybe," she said.
They only left the house three times, she said; twice to see a doctor and once to extend his three-month Pakistani visa to six months. He never went anywhere else and never saw any friends, she said.
"He just call his father and his mother and his grandmother," she said.
But others say Mr. James did much more than hibernate in his bedroom. He is alleged to have met up with a British Lashkar-e-Tayyiba operative named Abu Umar and trained at a camp 500 kilometres north of Lahore.
Mr. Attique said Mr. James was visited by Pakistani intelligence officers, who dropped by the house in Lahore to ask him questions.
"He told me, 'Some people came and he asked me question and he asked their father-in-law and some other peoples," said Mr. Attique.
Asked whether the officers were from the Pakistan military's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, he said, "Maybe. I have no idea who went there but some people went there, from which side I don't know."
He said he did not know what the intelligence officers told Mr. James. "This I never asked, really."
Mr. James was never able to receive extensive weapons training and he became extremely ill. His wife said he did not like Pakistan. He was reluctant to leave Mrs. James, but she insisted. "He want to stay with me but I say 'You're sick, you no stay with me.' "
He left on March 20, 2006.
After that, they talked on the phone every day, but then she stopped hearing from him. That's because on June 2, he was arrested by the RCMP at his parents' home in Toronto.
The next morning, police announced that Mr. James was one of 17 men who had been charged with taking part in an extremist group that had planned truck bombings and other attacks in Ontario.
Mr. James' father wept that day as he contemplated what would happen to him and his family. "I had no idea he was involved in anything like this," he said at the time.
When she did not hear from Mr. James, Mrs. James called her Uncle Attique, who broke the news that her husband had been arrested. "I said, 'Why he arrested and he no told me.' "
Since the arrest the newlyweds have spoken two or three times, but she said Mr. James has never said what happened or told her the details of the allegations.
Shown the RCMP and CSIS press statements on the arrests, which describe Mr. James as having participated in a terrorist group inspired by the ideology of al-Qaeda, she said that could not be.
He never spoke of al-Qaeda or Osama bin Laden, she said, and he only wanted to help poor people. "No this is not true," she said.
The family also notes that Mr. James was in Pakistan on the dates he is accused of undergoing terrorist training in Ontario.
"He no do this crime," she said.
How could he be involved in political groups when he was only just learning about Islam, she added.
"He just said, 'I become Muslim and I just pray.' He said, 'I just want my life.' I know he not do wrong. I know Jahmaal no do this."
Alone at home while her husband is behind bars half a world away, Mrs. James is in a difficult bind for a young woman from a conservative family.
"Yes, this is difficult," she allows, "but I just thinking good things. I no thinking bad things." But her family says Mrs. James is torn up. "She is so worried, sad and sometimes she is weeping," said her cousin Muhammad Yahya, a teacher who runs the Lahore outlet of Al-Attique Books.
The bookstore is in a tiny second-floor room in the Urdu Bazaar, where more than 1,000 booksellers manufacture Korans, textbooks and other works and sell them in small shops and stalls.
A nephew of Mr. Attique, Mr. Yahya recalls meeting Mr. James in Lahore. "There were some other people who introduced me, 'This is Jahmaal, he is from Canada.' "What he do, I don't know," he said, adding, "He is a very simple person."
Mr. James is not the only connection to Mr. Attique. Another of the accused, Steven Vikash Chand, was living in Mr. Attique's basement suite when he was arrested on June 2.
"I could not understand," Mr. Attique said of Mr. James' arrest. "He stayed approximately five months in Pakistan and he came back and he has been operated [on] and he was in hospital.
He said Mr. James knows nothing about the case. "I ask[ed] him, he said, 'I have no relation with anybody there in Pakistan.' I ask him, 'Do you know somebody, did you meet someone?'
His answer: "Never."
"But you see that investigator has more information than us. That is their duty and we only have a little bit information.... This is not our duty to collect information and do something, this is not our job, this is their job.
"We left [the] Third World, came [to the] First World not in anything else other than peace. We love peace we want to live in peace.... Anybody's son or father do something bad, it is our duty to condemn them."
sbell@nationalpost.com
Tomorrow, the Post speaks with the leaders of the outlawed Islamist militant group linked to the alleged Toronto terror plot.
© National Post 2006
PING!
"I'm shocked, shocked."
Hey, that's good enough for me... Welcome to Canada...
Warning! This is a high-volume ping list.
"Shocked, I tell you!"
AUGUST 2003 midmonth : (ONTARIO, CANADA : ARREST OF 19 PAKISTANI MEN WHO HAD AN INTEREST IN PICKERING NUCLEAR POWER PLANT, FLIGHT TRAINING, AND ACQUIRING DEVICES CONTAINING NUCLEAR MATERIAL ----- See TERROR CHARITY GLOBAL RELIEF) An anti-terrorism probe that led to the arrest of 19 Pakistani men, including one who took commercial flight training over a nuclear power plant, highlights security holes that should have been plugged after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, Ontario officials said. The Public Security and Anti-Terrorism Unit, a federal national security task force, quietly arrested the group of mostly young men last week [mid August]. The men appear to have used fraudulent student visas to enter Canada or to maintain their residency here. Federal authorities documented a pattern of suspicious behaviour that shows an interest in Ontario's nuclear generators and bears similarities to the hijackers involved in the 9/11 terror attacks on the United States. ... Federal investigators found an "alarming" network of immigrants, tied to a Toronto diploma mill, whose activities include trying to get into a nuclear compound, gathering radioactive devices, moving house in the middle of the night and learning to fly, according to a document summarizing the case presented at immigration detention hearings this week.
"There is a pattern of fraudulent document use to obtain or maintain immigration status," the document says. "To enter and/or remain in a country by misrepresentation is a known ruse used by persons of security concern. "The majority have not sought to regularize their status in Canada and although they appear to have the ability to support themselves in Canada, they have no clear source of income." The investigation was sparked by an immigration officer who grew suspicious about a student applying for permanent resident status. The officer could not verify claims the person attended the Ottawa Business College or even confirm that the school existed, according to the document. He also questioned a bank statement showing a $40,000 balance but no identifiable source of income. A police search of records at the school turned up 31 people who appear to have fraudulently used the school to enter or stay in Canada; 19 were arrested. Most are between 18 and 33 who, with one exception, have connections to Pakistan's Punjab province, noted for its Sunni Muslim extremism, authorities say.
The majority entered Canada as students, starting in January, 1998. None have entered through this scheme since Sept. 5, 2001, shortly before the attacks on the U.S. They have not actually studied or have done so in a "dilatory-- "Canadian arrests mirror 9/11 [19 Pakistani's interested in Nuke Plant] ," by Adrian Humphreys et al, National Post, Sat Aug 23, 2003
2004 : (CANADA : RCMP BEGIN MONITORING "GROUP OF 17"... )
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