Hryðjuverkamenn í Toronto - dagur fimm.

Já, það kemur eitthvað nýtt fram á hverjum degi, varðandi þessa hryðjuverkaógn sem kanadabúar virðast hafa búið við nú um nokkurt skeið, og flestir virðast gera ráð fyrir að við þurfum að búa við í framtíðinni.

Það kom einnig fram í dag að handtökur í Bretlandi í dag, tengist margnefndum handtökum hér í Ontario. Fréttir í gær um að til hefði staðið að ráðast á þinghúsið og hálshöggva forsætisráðherrann, hafa hvorutveggja, vakið undrun og reiði, sem og verið dæmdar fáránlegar.  Margir vilja reyndar meina að það hafi verið tilgangur lögmannsins sem "lak" fréttinni.

Forsætisráðherrann, Stephen Harper, tók þessu þó létt, sagði eitthvað í þá veru að meðan slíkar hótanir kæmu ekki úr þingflokki hans, stæði honum nokk á sama.  En dálkahöfundurinn Christie Blatchford er ekki á sama máli, en hún segir í dálki sínum í dag:

"The temptation, especially given what lawyer Gary Batasar disclosed yesterday about the charges against his client, is to write off the alleged homegrown Canadian terrorists as hapless (and therefore harmless) clowns.

According to various unconfirmed press reports of the last few days, the terror suspects were going to take down the CN Tower! No wait, make that the Peace Tower! Oops, correct that -- it was the Toronto Stock Exchange. Er, did I say the TSX? I meant the CBC. It was the CBC building! Wait a sec, it was that other building on Front Street West, where the Canadian Security Intelligence Service has its Toronto office!

Add to this Mr. Batasar's revelation -- that according to court documents, his client Steven Chand is accused of longing to behead Prime Minister Stephen Harper as the gang attacked Parliament Hill -- and you have the portrait of the alleged terrorists as the gang that couldn't shoot straight, guys who couldn't organize the proverbial one-car funeral  wasn't at the courthouse to hear Mr. Batasar deliver his bombshell, but certainly within a few hours the allegation against Mr. Chand was being delivered on local newscasts with a certain mocking, "behead the Prime Minister?" tone.

It would be quite the comfort to think this was all a bad joke, or some figment of ham-handed police work.

Alas, as an official close to the RCMP Integrated National Security Enforcement Team, which investigated these boys, reminds me, on Sept. 10, 2001, the idea of a bunch of terrorists hijacking jumbo jets and flying them into targets as diverse as the twin towers and the Pentagon would have seemed laugh-out-loud funny, too. Ditto, in early July last year, the prospect of a group of young men, as apparently British as warm beer and cricket, turning themselves into suicide bombers to lay waste to London's tube system would have seemed equally preposterous."

"Mr. Harper can publicly make light of his alleged beheading -- and saying "I can live with these threats as long as they're not from my caucus," as he did yesterday, hardly constitutes political interference in the judicial process or jeopardizes anyone's fair-trial rights -- but it's a bit early for the rest of us to join in on the giggle.

Because a plan is a lousy plan, because the perpetrators seem drawn in broad almost-pathetic cartoon strokes, doesn't mean it, or they, aren't serious. Judges say this very sort of thing in charging juries every day in courtrooms across the nation: It doesn't have to be a good plan to qualify, they say, it just has to be a plan."

Hér má svo lesa viðtal við tvo þingmenn, báða múslimi.

Globe and Mail rekur svo hugsanlega atburðarás hér.

 

Kandadíska lögreglan hefur upprætt tug hryðjuverkahópa undanfarin tvö ár