PunkAssBlog.com

If you’re outside of Canada, you might not be hearing much these days about the case of the Toronto 18, or the Toronto 17, or the Toronto 11 (the number of suspects charged keeps dwindling as the case against them collapses). They are 15 men, mostly in their early 20s, and five kids, all Muslim, charged in 2006 with an absurd plot to storm the CBC and Parliament and behead the Prime Minister. Two years ago, the mainstream media was congratulating the RCMP for averting disaster, but after charges against four of the men were stayed and one man was acquitted, it is grudgingly coming around to the position that maybe some rights may have been violated here.

I’m not boasting of much when I tell you that I called bullshit from the beginning. I’m not convinced that real terrorists strategize in chat rooms or over e-mail. And more to the point, it appeared even early on in the case that the informant who went to the RCMP, Mubin Shaikh, was compensated rather generously for his help and was likely the mastermind behind the plot, a.k.a. entrapment. He certainly needed the money, given his little cocaine habit. Also, the supposed “terrorist training” that the men and boys engaged in was apparently paintball.

My prediction? The charges against all of them will likely be dropped within the next year or so. I don’t think that there was much of a case to begin with. Whether those responsible—the RCMP, Shaikh, and so on—for what is almost certainly a momentous fuck-up and a miscarriage of justice will ever be held accountable, and whether the accused suspects will see any compensation for their ordeal is a different story. We rest too easily when we think: “Oh, it’s okay, it took awhile but they were acquitted.” Some of these kids were still in high school when they were arrested. What support will they have to get on with their lives?

Anyway, if they didn’t have a reason to storm Parliament in 2006, they might have a little more cause now.