Toronto 18 ‘Mastermind’ Gets Life In Prison

Zakaria Amara, the 24-year-old mastermind behind a plot to blow up several Canadian targets, has been sentenced to life in prison. He will be eligible for parole in just over six years.

Amara pleaded guilty in October and last Thursday read an open letter to Canadians at his sentencing hearing saying he renounces the extremist ideology that led him to plot mass destruction.

Amara’s wife also wrote to the judge, asking for some leniency, because of the heavy price she and the couple’s four-year-old daughter are paying.

Amara attributed his change in mindset to meeting people with different viewpoints in prison, including a Jewish man he befriended.

The Crown had sought a life sentence for Amara, saying the simple fact is that he planned mass murder.

Meanwhile, another member of the so-called Toronto 18, Saad Gaya, who had earlier described himself as “politically naïve” was sentenced to 12 years in prison Monday for his part in the homegrown terror plot.

Gaya was given seven-and-a-half years credit for the time he spent in custody before his trial.

Ontario Superior Court Justice Bruce Durno referred to Gaya as a “helper” in the plot.

“While the offender did not know how big the bombs were going to be … he was willfully blind as to the likelihood that there would be death or serious bodily harm,” he said.

“His degree of responsibility remains relatively high, albeit not as high as the others in the plot.”

A psychiatric assessment found Gaya poses no significant threat in the near future

The 22-year-old pleaded guilty in September and apologized for his part in “shameful crime”, which included plans to blow up various buildings in Ontario, including the Toronto Stock Exchange and the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) headquarters.

At that sentencing hearing, he told the court he was “extremely grateful” the plan “did not progress any further”.

Gaya claims he was “politically naïve” and believed the actions of the Toronto 18 would prompt Canada to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan. He was arrested in 2006 while unloading a delivery truck packed with three tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertilizer – three times the amount of ammonium nitrate used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

Gaya’s lawyer, Paul Slansky, described his client as a relatively minor player in the plot who was duped by the others.

Of the 18 people arrested in the 2006 sweep, seven have had their charges dropped or stayed, four have pleaded guilty, a youth was found guilty, one man’s trial began last week and five others face trial in March.

With files from The Canadian Press