Canadian terrorist killed in back of taxi

Aaron Driver, 24, was shot and killed in the back of a taxi where he had detonated an explosive device.  Ralph Goodale, the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness said that Canada needed to step up its counter-radicalization effects. Driver was found to have made a "martyrdom video" in which he said he was planning to launch an attack on an urban center during the morning or afternoon rush hour. 

Driver was well known to authorities and was under a peace bond for communicating with what the RCMP said were well-known Islamic State supporter in the UK and US. Goodale said: The government of Canada has to get far more proactive on the whole issue of outreach, community engagement, counter-radicalization, determining how and in what means the right positive constructive influences can be brought to bear to change what otherwise would be dangerous behaviour." 

However, the threat level for terrorism in Canada still remains at "medium" where it has remained since the autumn of 2014.

As with the ousted Conservatives, Goodale is making political points with respect to government actions against the terrorist threat noting that the government spent a half billion or so in the recent budget for police, national security, and border controls saying: "We've made our first investments in that direction and there will be more to follow." The FBI had come into possession of the martyr video and had tipped of the RCMP who identified Driver as the person in the video before noon.

When Driver called a cab and left his residence in Strathroy later in the afternoon. The RCMP surrounded the cab and "engaged with the suspect who detonated an explosive device in the back of the cab". It is not certain that Driver was killed in the explosion or subsequent shots by police. The cab driver was apparently injured but was at home rather than the hospital.

The US embassy in Ottawa stressed the incident as showing excellent cross-border co-operation between the two countries. Driver's father said he converted to Islam as a teen. He appears to have been radicalized in part on line. He was arrested in June of 2015 and was released on bail and had to wear a GPS monitoring bracelet or undergo religious counselling. 

Under the peace bond this was not required. Goodale said that there were no planned changes to the former Conservative Bill C-51 based on the Strathroy events. 

Liberals had criticized the bill but then voted in favor of it. They have made no changes in it since they took power. With this recent incident any changes will probably add new provisions in spite of criticism of the bill by many human rights organizations.

Driver attended a mosque in London where members had tried to change his perspective, and had kept police informed of his presence. A statement from the mosque noted: "While he had wrong views about the world, at no time did any officials with the mosque know or suspect that Aaron was translating those views into any kind of attack. He did not display any outward signs of aggression."
The Middle East Eye also has an article on the incident.

Supreme Court judge in B.C. finds RCMP guilty of entrapment

John Nutall and Amanda Karady who were found guilty on terrorism charges in June of 2015 had the verdicts thrown out as a British Columbia Supreme Court Justice found that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) were guilty of entrapment.

The couple thought that they were planting pressure-cooker bombs to kill and maim crowds gathered at the B.C. legislature on Canada Day three years ago. However, the plot was not their idea and police operatives convinced them that it was a better plan than those the couple suggested. The justice even called the terror plan a "police manufactured crime".

Justice Catherine Bruce did not mince words but claimed the RCMP used trickery, deceit, and even veiled threats to ensure that the couple tried to carry out the very terrorist acts of which they were found guilty. In her ruling, she even said:“The world has enough terrorists. We do not need the police to create more. There is clearly a need to curtail the actions of police ... to ensure that future undercover investigations do not follow the same path.”

Bruce said that the RCMP, in a sting lasting months, knowingly exploited the couples' vulnerabilities to ensure they tried to carry out the offense planned by the RCMP themselves. She said the couple was marginalized, socially isolated, and were former heroin addicts dependent upon methadone and welfare to subsist. They were all talk and no action, she said. They were recent converts to Islam.

Bruce maintained that without the involvement of undercover officers the couple would have been unable to articulate, plan and execute the bomb plot. Bruce even claimed that it was the police not the couple who led the plot. The primary undercover officer discouraged the couple from seeking outside spiritual help and convinced them that he was a member of a powerful international terrorist group. He said that the group would likely kill them if they did not follow through with the planned terrorist action. Bruce claimed that the undercover agent was actually the leader and the couple his disciples.

After the verdict, the couple were temporarily re-arrested but later released under a peace bond with strict conditions for up to a year. Bruce had delayed registering the conviction of the couple at the request of their defense lawyers who argued that the RCMP had entrapped their clients. Had the conviction been upheld the couple could have faced a maximum penalty of life in prison. The Crown has filed an appeal of the ruling.

The case is historic in that this is the first time that the entrapment defense has been argued successfully in a terrorism case. The decision means a permanent halt to court proceedings. Although this is not an acquittal or a finding that the person is not guilty, it has a similar result in that those accused can walk free without any criminal record.

There were 240 police officers involved in the sting operation and it included more than 70 hours of surveillance of the couple. Apparently, someone with ties to the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service may have had a role in radicalizing the couple in the first place.