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How a Canadian police agent cracked a terror cell
 He is a shadowy figure who may be the highest paid police agent in Canadian history, costing taxpayers millions as he was rushed into witness protection. Yet the Islamist infiltrator once known as Shaher Elsohemy may prove worth every penny, at least as far as prosecutors and security services are concerned.Thursday's sentencing of a confessed terrorist will mark the first time that any core member of the alleged Toronto 18 bomb conspiracy is sent to a penitentiary. This conviction might well have been impossible, had police not installed a man on the inside. An Arab entrepreneur in his 30s, Mr. Elsohemy is portrayed in court documents as playing a crucial, clandestine role in thwarting the high-profile plot, yet has received almost no attention to date. He claims that he so thoroughly infiltrated a inner circle of radicalized youth that he was given envelopes of cash and shopping lists of chemicals, as he was asked to help attack Toronto with fertilizer bombs. On June 2, 2006, the agent disappeared to parts unknown to assume a new identity, as undercover police staged a delivery of fake ammonium nitrate to some of the suspects. Eighteen accused in total were rounded up that day. One of them has since opted not to fight charges. Not a day passes that I am not filled with regret for my role in this despicable crime, Saad Khalid, now 22, said at a sentencing hearing last week. Caught unloading boxes marked ammonium nitrate fertilizer from the back a truck, he asked for leniency as prosecutors pressed for a 20-year jail term. Ontario Superior Court Judge Bruce Durno will sentence Mr. Khalid today, and in doing so reveal how much weight he gives to the evidence of the mystery agent who has not resurfaced since vanishing three years ago. Obviously, all the juicy details are at the link. Posted by: ryuge 2009-09-03 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=278149 |