Canada court convicts man in British terrorism plot

A Canadian accused of plotting to bomb buildings and natural gas lines in Britain was convicted Wednesday of financing and facilitating terrorism. Momin Khawaja was the first person charged under Canadian anti-terrorism laws passed after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Khawaja, 29, of Pakistani descent, was accused of collaborating with a group of Britons of Pakistani descent in a thwarted 2004 plan to attack London’s Ministry of Sound nightclub, a shopping center and electrical and gas facilities in Britain.

“Momin Khawaja was aware of the group’s purposes, and whether he considered them terrorism or not, he assisted the group in many ways in the pursuit of its terrorist objective,” Justice Douglas Rutherford wrote in his judgment. “It matters not whether any terrorist activity was actually carried out.”

Though Khawaja pleaded not guilty to all charges, his lawyer acknowledged that the defendant created a remote-control device for setting off explosives. But the lawyer, Lawrence Greenspon, insisted it was meant for use against military targets in Afghanistan, not for a homemade fertilizer bomb being constructed by the plotters in London.

Five co-conspirators were convicted in London last year. Khawaja, to be sentenced next month, could face life in prison.