Al Qaida-inspired plotters given tougher penalties in Canada

Toronto:  Toughening Canada's much-criticised lenient stand on terrorism, a court of appeal here on Friday raised sentences of terrorists jailed in the famous Toronto-18 plot.

The Al Qaida-inspired Toronto-18 terror plot was uncovered with the arrest of 18 people in June 2006. The plotters had planned to storm the Canadian parliament, take Prime Minister Stephen Harper hostage and behead him. They had also planned to blow up the Toronto Stock Exchange and military installations to revenge Canada's participation in the war in Afghanistan.

In the case of Mohammad Momin Khawaja, the first person convicted under the new terror law, the court raised the 10-year jail term to life imprisonment.

"Terrorism must not be allowed to take root in Canada. When it is detected, it must be dealt with in the severest of terms,' the judgment said.

The court also raised jail terms of two other terrorists — Sa'ad Gaya and Sa'ad Khalid — from 12 years and 14 years to 18 years and 20 years.

The appeal court also threw out the review petition of plot ringleader Zakaria Amara, who was given life term in January, saying that if his plot had succeeded it would have led to "indiscriminate killing of innocent people on a potentially massive scale".

"Indeed, in the appellant's case, a strong argument can be made that widespread carnage was precisely the outcome that he intended."