Key member of terror group pleads guilty

TORONTO — The ringleader of a homegrown terror plot that officials said targeted Canadian government buildings and the stock exchange pleaded guilty Thursday.

Zakaria Amara is the fourth member of the so-called “Toronto 18,” to plead guilty since the since 2006 when the group was arrested and accused of planning to detonate truck bombs outside Toronto’s Stock Exchange, a building housing Canada’s spy agency and a military base.

Amara, 24, faces a life sentence.

In an agreed statement of facts read into the court record, Amara admitted playing a leadership role in staging a terrorist training camp north of Toronto and in planning three one-ton vehicle bombs to be detonated in downtown Toronto and another location.

Prosecutor Ione Jaffe said Amara planned to rent U-Haul trucks, pack them with explosives and detonate them via remote control toward the end of 2006. Police found he used a public library computer to conduct searches on bomb-making and the chemicals needed for explosives. A search of his home also turned up a bomb-making manual, circuit boards, and a device that could trigger an explosion via a cell phone.

His personal computer also had recordings of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and other jihad materials.

Through a police agent, Amara tried to buy what he believed was three tons of ammonium nitrate — three times what was used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people.

Amara pleaded guilty to knowingly participating in a terrorist group and intending to cause an explosion for the benefit of a terrorist group. The case was developed after the suspects were followed, wiretapped as well as infiltrated by two paid police informants.

The arrests made international headlines and heightened fears in a country where many people thought they were relatively immune from terrorist strikes.

Four members have now pleaded guilty and one was convicted after a trial.

Charges were stayed or dropped against seven people and six men still face trial.

Those already sentenced have received what some critics consider light sentences. One man was sentenced to seven years after pleading guilty, but the sentence amounts to two years after time served in pretrial custody is factored in. Prisoners in Canada are given double credit for their time spent in pretrial custody.

Another man pleaded guilty in May and was handed a 14-year prison sentence, but he was given seven years credit for pretrial custody and can apply for parole after less than 2 1/2 years. The government has appealed and has said giving a convicted terrorist a 14-year prison term with seven years credit for time already served does not reflect the seriousness of the crime.

Last year, a judge found another man guilty of taking part in a terrorist organization and sentenced him to 2 1/2 years, but with time already served factored in he was allowed to walk free.