15-Sep-19: Terror victims recover damages via Iranian assets in Canada

Haniye of Hamas [Source]

Though it's gotten little media coverage, Iran's key enabling role in terror attacks conducted via its proxies and Iran-funded agents has been recognized in an important string of Canadian court decisions.

This has practical implications worth knowing about for all the involved parties.

The following is extracted from a September 12, 2019 article published by Canada's Globalnews.ca

Iran’s properties in Canada sold, proceeds handed to terror victims

Stewart Bell National Online 

Tens of millions worth of seized Iranian government properties have been sold off in Canada and the proceeds handed to victims of terrorist groups sponsored by the regime, Global News has learned. According to a document filed in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice last month, the victims got a share of the money earned through the sale of Iran’s buildings in Ottawa and Toronto. The properties went for more than $28-million, documents show. The recipients were victims of Hamas and Hezbollah — terrorist groups bankrolled, armed and trained by Iran.

“The distribution to creditors as authorized by the court has been made,” the Toronto law firm appointed as the court-appointed receiver, Albert Gelman Inc., informed the judge on Aug. 7.

Normally that would be an unremarkable statement but the creditors in the case were terrorism victims and the assets were Canadian properties seized from the Iranian regime.

The Ottawa property, which had been the Iranian Cultural Centre, was particularly valuable. Marketed as a “transit-oriented development opportunity on the apron of the University of Ottawa,” it sold to a Montreal developer for $26.5-million. The Toronto property, which was owned by a company headed by an embassy official and served as the Centre for Iranian Studies, went for $1.85-million.

A lawyer representing one of the victims also confirmed the sales had occurred.
The Canadian Coalition Against Terror, which lobbied to changed the law so victims could seek redress from states that sponsor terrorism, said it was pleased Tehran had been held to account.

“The Iranian regime unwaveringly and unabashedly provides tens of billions of dollars for terrorist organizations that have destroyed innocent lives across the globe, including those of Canadians,” said Danny Eisen, the C-CAT spokesperson.

Foreign governments typically can’t be sued, but the legislation lifted state immunity for those countries. Only non-diplomatic assets can be claimed by victims, meaning embassies and consulates are off-limits... 

Iran initially ignored the case but then hired a law firm to appeal the Ontario court ruling, which the regime called “politically motivated.”

The sale and distribution of Iran’s assets began after the Supreme Court rejected Iran’s appeal last year. Now that the sale of the properties is complete, the assets have been distributed to the victims.

The rest of the article is here. The unsurprising Iranian reaction:

Iran says Canada's sale of properties "unlawful"

TEHRAN, Sept. 14 (Xinhua) -- Iranian Foreign Ministry has said that the recent sale of Iran's properties in Canada by the Canadian government is "unlawful," Iran's state TV reported on Saturday.
Based on a Canadian ruling back in 2016 and later an endorsement by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, seized Iranian government properties worth of tens of millions of dollars have been sold in Canada and the proceeds have been handed to "victims of terrorist groups (allegedly) sponsored by Iran."
Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abbas Mousavi on Friday dismissed the Canadian move, saying that it is "a clear breach of the international law." Mousavi urged the Canadian government to "immediately" return the properties and revoke the decision.
"If Ottawa fails to immediately revoke the unlawful decision and does not compensate the damage, Tehran will take action to restore its rights based on international regulations," he was quoted as saying. "The government of Canada will be held responsible for all the consequences," he added.
[Full story here: Xinhua, September 14, 2019]

Long-running efforts to achieve essentially the same thing in the United States continue to follow a rocky trajectory. This is extracted from an August 9, 2019 Reuters report:

US verdict allowing seizure of Iran-linked Manhattan skyscraper is overturned 

Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A jury verdict allowing the U.S. government to seize a midtown Manhattan office tower that it said was effectively controlled by Iran was thrown out on Friday by a federal appeals court, which cited several errors by the trial judge. The 3-0 decision by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan is a defeat for the Department of Justice, which went to trial hoping to sell the 36-story building at 650 Fifth Avenue, perhaps for close to $1 billion (829.26 million pounds), and distribute proceeds to victims of bombings and other attacks linked to Iran.

Jurors had found in June 2017 that the nonprofit Alavi Foundation, which had a 60% stake in the partnership that owned the building, violated U.S. sanctions imposed against Iran in 1995 because it knew that the 40% owner, Assa Corp, was a front for an Iranian state-owned lender, Bank Melli.

But in Friday’s decision, Circuit Judge Richard Wesley faulted trial judge Katherine Forrest, who is now in private practice, for “a troubling pattern of errors on relatively straightforward issues.” Wesley said these included admitting videotapes of former Alavi board members repeatedly invoking their constitutional right against self-incrimination, and refusing to let Alavi gather evidence to show the government sued too late.

“If this case returns to trial, a properly informed jury may or may not find for the government - a topic on which we have no opinion,” Wesley wrote. “But getting to any outcome requires a fair and procedurally adequate process, something that has been lacking in this case. There are no shortcuts in the rule of law.”

...The cases are In re: 650 Fifth Avenue and Related Properties, 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 17-3258; and Havlish et al v 650 Fifth Avenue Co in the same court, No. 17-3278.

Setbacks notwithstanding, there's a comforting degree of vindication in seeing Iran's property seized and turned into cash compensation for the victims of its unparalleled global malevolence.

17-Apr-18: Remembering and redeeming [VIDEO]

Exactly three years ago, Arnold Roth was a keynote speaker at the Toronto Jewish community's commemoration of Israel's 67th Independence Day (Yom Ha'atzmaut) and the day that precedes it each year - Yom Hazikaron, Israel's national Memorial Day.

In that April 2015 speech, Arnold reflected on what some consider the strangeness of a day of deep sadness being bracketed closely with national jubilation.

His speech, under the title Remembrance and Redemption, is the subject of the video embedded below.

In it, he touches on the song that Malki, our murdered daughter, composed in the last year of her life: several versions of it, all freely downloadable, are here, along with some of the background to its creation and aftermath.

He also shared aspects of a not-so-pleasant experience - as Israel's representative - addressing an international conference on terror and its victims, convened in New York City by the Secretary General of the United Nations in 2008. (A Haaretz report of that conference and of Arnold's speech is here.) That speech is the source of the audio track accompanying a short introductory film clip that was shown to the audience in Toronto and which takes up the first 4m 20s of the YouTube video clip.

[Sincere thanks to Mizrachi Canada for their permission to show this selection from their longer video recording (online here) of a memorable night of communal introspection and celebration.]

10-May-16: Stopping to remember

A country stops to remember [Image Source]

Tonight (Tuesday) here in Israel, sunset marks the start of an extraordinary period of 48 hours.

An entire country first stops, remembers and mourns collectively and individually the thousands of lives taken from us in the several wars and many terror attacks that have for generations – starting long before Israel came into existence as a separate country - characterized the extreme animosity expressed towards us by the surrounding Arab states.

That’s Yom Hazikaron, Israel's national Memorial Day.

Then, barely pausing for breath, the mood changes dramatically as the sun sets Wednesday evening and we go straight into a day of national joy” Israel's 68th Independence Day, starting Wednesday night.

Last year at exactly this time, Arnold Roth was an invited keynote speaker at Toronto's community-wide commemoration of Israel’s national days. After participating, we can say that Toronto does a really fine job: a formal occasion, very well attended, and marked by full-hearted solemnity and celebration. It felt a tremendous privilege to take a role.

In his speech, Arnold reflected on what some consider the strangeness of a day of deep sadness being bracketed closely with national jubilation. His speech, under the title Remembrance and Redemption, is the subject of the video embedded below. In it, he touches on the song that Malki, our murdered daughter, composed in the last year of her life: several versions of it, all freely downloadable, are here, along with some of the background to its creation and aftermath.

He also shared aspects of a not-so-pleasant experience - as Israel's representative - addressing an international conference on terror and its victims, convened in New York City by the Secretary General of the United Nations in 2008. (A Haaretz report of that conference and of Arnold Roth's speech is here.) That speech is the source of the audio track accompanying a short introductory film clip that was shown to the audience in Toronto and which takes up the first 4m 20s of the YouTube video below.

This video was first published a year ago on the blog of the Malki Foundation, a really fine charity worthy of your attention and support. (Full disclosure: we are among its founders. Our roles - Frimet's and Arnold's - are honorary. From its inception, the foundation has always had a top-notch, but tiny, professional management team which does a great job.)

To put some concrete data around the pain that Israelis will be remembering tonight and tomorrow, the official military data (via Ministry of Defense) refer to 16,307 bereaved families: 9,442 bereaved parents, 4,917 widows and 1,948 orphans (below the age of 30). Soldiers who fell from 1860 to May 6, 2016 number 23,447. More than one-and-a-half million people will be visiting some 52 military cemeteries across Israel tomorrow.

The first official memorial events will begin shortly after the first siren blast this evening (Tuesday, May 10 at 8:00 pm. There will be a two-minute-long siren tomorrow (Wednesday, May 11) at 11:00 am, when anyone who cares to look will be able to observe that remarkable sight of highways throughout the entire country stopping to flow, pedestrians standing with heads bowed, a nationwide hush in the midst of a bright, sunny, warm and busy day in a Middle Eastern country that has not forgotten to honor those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice.

15-Jul-15: Paying our respects to Canada

From Times of Israel tonight, an article reporting that Canada’s Foreign Minister Rob Nicholson says

his country would maintain a policy of economic sanctions against Iran in spite of the nuclear deal signed Tuesday between Tehran and world powers. “We will continue to judge Iran by its actions, not its words,” Nicholson said. “We will examine this deal further before taking any specific Canadian action...”
“Iran continues to be a significant threat to international peace and security owing to the regime’s nuclear ambitions, its continuing support for terrorism, its repeated calls for the destruction of Israel, and its disregard for basic human rights,” Nicholson said.
“Canada will continue to support the efforts of the International Atomic Energy Agency to monitor Iran’s compliance with its commitments,” he added.

Kol hakavod! 

12-Jun-15: Citizenship: is it becoming a counter-terrorism tool?

Bahraini passport [Image Source]

Last month, we noted here ["22-May-15: Yet another Australian "normal guy" joins barbarians as government announces passport-driven counter-strategy"] how Australia is evaluating a counter-terrorism strategy that involves passports.

The plan (detailed here) addresses "the growing threat of homegrown jihadi­sts" by threatening to strip "second-generation Australians involved in terrorism", as well as what are being called "dual nationals", in order "to tighten national security laws":

National security agencies are watching a large number of radic­alised second-generation Australians... [T]he government is examining ways to revoke or suspend the ­citizenship of hate preachers and foreign fighters, including Australians who have one or both parents born overseas, in a bid to tackle the growing threat of homegrown jihadists... Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said... "It is a privilege to be an Australian citizen even by birth and if people are involved in terrorist activities the government is examining what options might be available in terms of suspension of privileges..."  [The Australian, May 21, 2015]

There's been Australian criticism of the proposal:

Revoking citizenship is pointless and absurd | Andrew Zammit ("a researcher at Monash University's Global Terrorism Research Centre") | The Age, Melbourne | May 28, 2015 | "There may be many terrorist suspects currently in Lebanon who hold Australian citizenship. Australia would not appreciate it if the Lebanese government said "not our problem", revoked their citizenship and deported them. But this is effectively what Australia could end up doing to other countries. Currently only a few countries, such as Britain, take this approach. If more countries adopt it, it could undermine the international counter-terrorism co-operation that is needed to tackle this global threat and that Australia itself benefits from...

DVD "Muslims in Australia Since the 1600s"
[Image Source]

And critical voices are being heard from leaders of Australia's Muslim community:

Silma Ihram, of the Australian Muslim Women’s Association, has also warned that some Muslim Australians could end up like the Rohingya people of Burma, left stateless or “shipped off to Cambodia”. She has joined the growing chorus of criticism by some government ministers and backbenchers, legal experts and community groups, over attempts to increase executive powers to revoke citizenship of suspected terrorists... "What the government is doing is to make this whole scenario of fear. Yes we have potential for [a terrorist] problem, no one is denying that. But the debate is had like the ‘reds under the bed’ so that [Abbott] can come out with solution and be voted back in"... Ihram said young Muslims were already contributing to Australian society with high levels of tertiary entrance rates and community participation but the government’s unhelpful rhetoric, such as Tony Abbott singling out the community, was isolating. "When the government suggests Muslims don’t have the same values Australians do – which is rubbish, [Isis] will say over social media to young Muslims, ‘they will never understand you, they will always fight against you’ and it all feeds straight into their rhetoric," Ihram said... "Everyone is going to lose so many freedoms under these laws." ["Tony Abbott using citizenship debate to win next election, Muslim leader says", The Guardian, June 8, 2015]

We quoted the same Australian lady three months ago ["26-Mar-15: Australia's rising pre-occupation with its death-cultists"] when she offered a stupefyingly simplistic cause-and-effect view of Australia's growing pre-occupation with terror:

Silma Ihram, a member of the Australian Muslim Women’s Association based in Sydney, says youths are drawn to IS because the Australian government "continues to create an us versus them" mentality... Ms Ihram, born Anne Frances Beaumont, is an articulate advocate for racial tolerance and the notion that it isn't Moslems but just some angry peripheral people that give Islam a bad name. A 2006 Australian movie review called her "Erin Brockovich in a hijab". 

At the time, we noted that, if she's right, this will all end up peacefully but it might all get a lot more serious if she's wrong.

A little closer to where we live, there's recent evidence that countering terrorism via citizenship and passports has some powerful advocates. This report appeared yesterday in Gulf Daily News, a newspaper published in the Kingdom of Bahrain:

"Terror cell 57 jailed for blasts" | Noor Zahra | June 12, 2015 | FIFTY-SEVEN men have been handed jail sentences ranging from 10 to 25 years after being convicted of being part of an Iranian-backed terrorist cell that orchestrated a bombing campaign in Bahrain. They were found guilty of arms smuggling and plotting a string of attacks on security personnel and landmark structures, including the Saudi Embassy and King Fahad Causeway, by Bahrain's High Criminal Court yesterday. The court heard that members of the cell received militia training in Iraq and Iran... Four of the 61 defendants were acquitted due to lack of evidence by judges, who revoked the Bahraini citizenships of all of those found guilty... Eighteen defendants found guilty are still at large and have been on the run since police first launched a series of raids targeting the group in May 2013. [The text of the verdict includes this:] "They tried to establish terrorist groups by recruiting Bahraini youth and using their connections with the Sadr movement in Iraq and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. They then sent Bahraini youth to receive militia training in Iran and Iraq to carry out terrorists attacks in Bahrain and to overthrow the government..." In addition to life sentences for five defendants, judges sentenced 22 others to 15 years behind bars and handed 10-year sentences to another 30 defendants.

Though the Bahraini paper does not mention it, most if not all of the accused are Shi'ites, the branch of Islam espoused by 10-15% of Moslems worldwide and by the majority of people in Bahrain (and backed by Iran, a Shi'ite-majority country). A solid majority of Bahrain's Moslems, about 70%, are Shia. However the tiny island state of 742,600 (2006 official estimate) of whom nearly 300,000 are non-citizens to begin with, has been controlled since the 18th century by the al-Khalifa family. It's a self-declared monarchy, like most of the statelets in the oil-drenched Persian Gulf. The al-Khalifa clan are Sunni Moslems. Hence the instability, particularly since 2011.

From a website that helps aliens acquire US citizenship

What are other states doing?

• In Canada, The Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act 2014 includes "new grounds to revoke Canadian citizenship from dual citizens who are convicted of terrorism, high treason, treason or spying offences, depending on the sentence... The majority of revocation cases will be decided by the citizenship and immigration minister, or his delegate", according to the Canadian government's backgrounder on the legislation. "This includes cases of convictions of terrorism, treason and spying offences."
• The United States (according to this source) has not recently passed any laws that would penalise foreign fighters by revoking their citizenship. The United States Constitution makes change difficult though current US legislation does allow citizenship to be revoked if a citizen displays an "intent to relinquish their citizenship". Fighting in a foreign army may be deemed an indicator of such intent and thus lead to loss of US citizenship.
• Under French law, the government may strip citizenship from dual nationals if a person has been convicted of terrorism within 15 years of becoming a French citizen. This past January, France's Constitutional Court upheld the law in a case involving a French Moroccan dual national convicted of terrorism offences… the court ruled the removal of his citizenship was permitted (and not a prohibited form of discrimination) if and only if that person had held French citizenship for more than 15 years. If less than 15 years, the principle of equality would be violated. Le Monde says there have been eight cases of dual citizens being stripped of French citizenship since 1973.

29-Apr-15: Iran's terrorists-by-proxy: getting on with what they do - in quiet neighbourhoods near you

Yes, still wanted [Image Source]

Some of the killers of a bus-load of Israeli tourists bombed at a Burgas airport in Bulgaria in 2012 are still free.

If Burgas has slipped off your radar, here's a reminder of two reports we posted at the time: "20-Jul-12: US says Hezbullah and its primary sponsor Iran executed the Burgas, Bulgaria, killings" and "21-Jul-12: How involved in terror against Israelis and Jews are the Iranians?"

Authorities in the US announced on Tuesday that three Hezbollah agents, two of them accused of being behind the murderous attack on Israelis in Bulgaria, have just been put onto an official terror watch list [source: Hezbollah suspects placed on special US terror list | AFP | April 29, 2015]

The State Department named Meliad Farah, Hassan el-Hajj Hassan and Hussein Atris as "specially designated global terrorists." The terror designation makes it illegal for US citizens to engage in any transactions with the three men, and freezes any property they might possess within the United States. All three men are Lebanese by birth, but Farah was identified as an Australian national, while Hassan el-Hajj Hassan is Canadian. Meliad Farah and Hassan el-Hajj Hassan were placed on the list for their alleged role in the July 2012 suicide attack on a bus at the airport in Burgas, Bulgaria that killed six people, including five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian citizen. Hussein Atris, who the State Department said has Swedish nationality, was identified as a member of Hezbollah's overseas terrorism unit. He was arrested in 2012 in Thailand as a suspect in a plot to carry out a bombing in Bangkok and was sentenced by a Thai court to two years and eight months in prison for possessing illegally possessing explosives. He was released in September 2014, and is believed, like the other two men, to currently be in Lebanon. Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah, which is backed financially and politically by Iran, is considered a terrorist organization by the United States.

The formal State Department announcement is online here.

Many people may mentally dismiss the dangers posed by terrorists, like these, who spend their days and nights in far-off non-threatening Lebanon. Keep away from Lebanon, we figure, and everything's cool. But it is not entirely like that. What might not be fully appreciated is that when they are not plotting, planning and re-equipping in that lawless viper's nest of Islamist bombers and other terrorist thugs, these people - as the AFP report points out - move freely in their second homes: Australia, Canada, Sweden.

A Sydney Morning Herald report ["Australian Meliad Farah will be tried for Israeli tourist bus bombing in Bulgaria", September 13, 2013] suggested a little misleadingly that the suspected killer named as Meliad Farah was going to be indicted and tried real soon. But in reality, the 32-year-old better known in Australia (where he holds citizenship and - contrary to the FBI statement - where he was born) as Hussein Hussein, has not actually been arrested. Yet.

The other murder-by-terrorism fugitive, Hassan el-Hajj Hassan, lived in Canada from the time he was eight years old [source]. Chances are he looks and seems more like an ordinary resident of Winnipeg than a Middle Easterner.

Speaking of terrorists: Mohammad Khazaee, Iran's
ambassador to the United Nations, [Image Source]

How much simpler life would be if jihadis and Islamism-fuelled killers had posters glued to their foreheads saying who they are and what they plan to do. Unfortunately figuring out who they are and when and where they next intend to attack unsuspecting victims can be a serious and complicated challenge.

As for connecting them with the government of Iran's burgeoning terrorism wing, the Iranians themselves say that's unfair. No less a personage than Iran’s Ambassador to the United Nations His Excellency Mr Mohammad Khazaee said it was Israel, not his own country. that actually carried out the Burgas airport bus bombing attack. How so? Because of this compelling argument:

"Such [a] terrorist operation could only be planned and carried out by the same regime whose short history is full of state terrorism operations and assassinations aimed at implicating others for narrow political gains..." [Telegraph UK, July 26, 2012]

The Iranian added for good measure that there were many examples of when Israel had killed "its own citizens or innocent Jewish people in order to blame others", and said it was "suspicious" that Israel had accused Iran of masterminding the bombing so soon after the attack.

There are some additional insights into this charming man's approach to diplomacy in a revealing February 2013 article on the Forbes Magazine site: "Meet Iran's Ambassador to the UN":

With his neat mustache and well-cut jackets, Khazaee looks like the very model of an earnest diplomat... Khazaee is one of the Iranian ambassadors described in the complaint as having directed the activities of the Alavi Foundation, starting soon after his 2007 arrival as Iran’s envoy to the U.N. in New York... Protected by diplomatic immunity, he remains an urbane presence at the U.N., with access to Manhattan, making connections, peddling propaganda, turning up last year on TV’s Charlie Rose talk show... If Khazaee, with his mannered inflections and his buttoned vest, appears worlds removed from Iran’s goose-stepping Revolutionary Guards, or Iran’s boorish President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (threatening in his lounge suit to wipe Israel off the map), that’s because Khazaee’s job is to cover for them on the diplomatic stage. [Forbes]

We happen to have written in the past about the Alavi Foundation that's mentioned in the Forbes quote. See "18-Sep-13: Striking back at the money that enables the terrorists" and "19-Apr-14: One small step for civilized society; one substantial leap in the fight against the terrorists"

A small measure of how insane some aspects of international relations have become in this terrorism-rich age: Khazaee - who on 14 September 2011 publicly accused Obama and the US of deploying "nuclear blackmail against a non-nuclear-weapon state", namely his country, Iran - was elected Vice President of the United Nations General Assembly.

12-Apr-15: Calling Canada

If you are in the Toronto area, here's a heads-up that Arnold Roth is going to be visiting there briefly to be the guest speaker at a public event on Wednesday night, April 22, 2015. Details are on the Malki Foundation blog (click here).

Regular readers of this blog know that the Roths look for opportunities to share their views and experiences about terrorism, and insights they have gotten from personal exposure to aspects of it that are too often not well understood.

Arnold will be speaking at several private and public venues during his week in Toronto. To the extent that his schedule allows, he welcomes additional opportunities. If you have suggestions, please be in touch.

And for anyone interested in the background to the work of the Malki Foundation, established by the Roths in 2001, this past weekend's Jerusalem Post Magazine carries an interview with Arnold. Click here to view.

24-Mar-15: In Canadian terror prosecution, research scientist and not-quite-stateless thug are convicted

From a news report highlighting enhanced security measures that
the foiled plot is provoking in Canada [Image Source]

In Canada, two men charged with plotting to derail a passenger train travelling between Canada and the US were convicted on eight terror-related charges on Friday. Their names are Raed Jaser and Chiheb Esseghaier, and we wrote about them at the time of their arrests back in April 2013. See "22-Apr-13: Tentacles in Canada, and the Iranians are behind it according to police" and a follow-up, "28-Apr-13: Canadians learn that criminals can be saved from deportation if they persuade court they are "Palestinian""

The NPR version ("2 Men Convicted In Canada In 2013 Train Derailment Plot" | NPR | March 21, 2015) of the post-verdict report is brief to the point of laconic, avoiding mention of most of the points we raised two years ago. They write that Jaser is "of Palestinian descent" and Esseghaier is "Tunisian-born". That first descriptor is more relevant than they indicate, and points to something crazy in the way Palestinian Arabs can get away with murder (literally) via the current passion for political correctness in some quarters. The second conceals the real take-away which is that a poisonous passion for Islamist hatred, violence and showcase-scale murder is at the heart of this sequence of events.

Jaser immigrated to Canada with his parents on forged passports (as we noted here), and earned himself a criminal record as he grew to adulthood in the family's new land. Those offences, including making death threats, rendered him ineligible to become a Canadian citizen. The Canadian authorities tried to expel him, serving him with a deportation order in 2004. But in a Canadian court proceeding, Jaser's lawyer successfully argued that he could not be deported because, as a Palestinian, he was stateless. Some time after that, Jaser received a pardon. Why is not clear but perhaps ought to be on the minds of Canadians today. Ditto for the fact that he was later granted permanent residency status in Canada.  

Convicted terrorist Jaser has his supporters, naturally
[Image Source]

As we said in our 2013 post, there is something startling about a criminal offender claiming to be a Palestinian as well as stateless and therefore exempt from being expelled - on the grounds that there is allegedly nowhere to send him - even when Canadian law requires it. That's something the Canadians might want to take up with the Palestinian Authority who declared themselves a state more than twenty-five years ago on November 15, 1988. Then 24 years after that, on November 29, 2012, the United Nations General Assembly voted to give Palestine "non-member observer State status" and PA President Mahmoud Abbas called that the "birth certificate of the reality of the state of Palestine" [source]. For the freshly convicted terrorist, that must have felt like having your cake and eating it too. 

In its report on the convictions, Associated Press [Two men convicted of terrorist plot to attack New York-Toronto train, March 21, 2015] said of the Tunisian

Esseghaier appeared unruffled as the Toronto jury found him guilty on all five terrorism charges against him. He calmly repeated that he had not participated in the trial and did not want to take part in sentencing arguments either... Esseghaier, who was pursuing a doctorate in Montreal when he was arrested in 2013, chose not to participate in his trial because he had wanted to be judged by the rules of the Qur’an. He did not cross-examine any witnesses, refused to mount a defence and frequently fell asleep in the prisoner’s box.

Bionanotechnologist and convicted (though unkempt) would-be
murderer and terrorist [Image Source

A doctorate? Yes, plus a bachelors degree in Industrial Biology and a masters in Industrial Biotechnology [source]. Plainly no idiot, this passionate and ideologically-disciplined jihad-minded terrorist's professional advancement owes a great deal to Canada and Canadian taxpayers. It's they who underwrite the Quebec-based Biosensor BioMEMS Bionanotechnology Lab at INRS (Institut national de la recherche scientifique), one of Canada’s top universities, where Esseghaier, described here as an "unkempt, stuttering Tunisian", spent his days and his plotting time. A thank-you note was not, as far as we know, part of the evidence in the trial.

And did we mention that he "is known to have travelled to Iran"? According to the RCMP, "the duo received “direction and guidance” from “al-Qaeda elements in Iran” as they scoped out railway targets in Canada in hopes of derailing a New York-bound Via passenger train".

Now try to connect that to the fierce, perhaps impenetrable, state of mind that allows an accused to fall asleep while being tried for murder and terrorism.

It might have been interesting to see some speculation in the media analysis about how accurate or not the ever-popular model of desperate, disenfranchised, under-educated losers living on the fringes of society is when figuring out who the foot-soldiers of Islamist terrorism directed at the West really are. That opportunity was not taken in this round, unfortunately.

How easily might a murderous plot like this one have succeeded? Uncovering it involved co-operation among multiple agencies (listed alphabetically) - and perhaps others too, since only Canadian bodies are named in the source which seems unlikely:

Canada Border Services Agency; Canadian federal Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams (INSETs); Canadian Security Intelligence Service; CN Rail; Durham Regional Police; Ontario Provincial Police; Peel Regional Police; Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP); Service de police de la Ville de Montréal; Sûreté du Québec; Toronto Police Service; York Regional Police; Via Rail Canada physical security team

When the effort required is as self-evidently large as that, reasonable people are entitled to be very thankful that worse has not already happened. The resources called for in thwarting un-noticed plotters of terrorism on a colossal scale are not something any society can take for granted. Life would of course be simpler if such people walked around with signs stuck to their foreheads announcing what they are planning to do to the rest of us. Until that becomes the case, we're doomed to perpetual watchfulness and quiet optimism as we live our lives and advance our societies.

14-Nov-14: Ensuring the memory of the Rue Copernic terrorist attack victims lives on, and why that's so important

We posted here in the early hours of this morning about the Canadian Supreme Court's decision yesterday in a terrorism case that will mean the deportation back to France of a prime suspect in the unsolved attack.

Victims of terrorism know - in ways that other people sometimes intuit but more often don't notice or ignore - that those who execute acts of terror are remembered, quoted and photographed far more than the innocent victims of their savagery.

So it is with no small amount of quiet satisfaction that we publish here several photographs that arrived by email this morning. They come from the fine people who stand at the helm of the active and effective French terror victims representative organization, the Association française des Victimes du Terrorisme, the AfVT. They record a media conference and memorial event organized by the Association and the French Jewish Liberal Union on October 2, 2013 inside the restored Rue Copernic house of worship, the Union Libérale Israélite de France synagogue. Among its goals, to pay tribute to the lives lost more than three full decades earlier to the bombers.

Rue Copernic synagogue, October 2013

Last year's ceremony at the Rue Copernic synagogue: From left to right, Ms Patricia Barbé, whose father Jean-Michel Barbé was one of the murdered victims, Mrs. Monique Barbé, Jean-Michel Barbé's widow; Mr Micha Shagrir, from Israel, whose wife Aliza was murdered; and Mrs. Corinne Adler who as a young girl was celebrating her bat-mitzvah inside the synagogue when the bomb exploded. Standing behind them is Guillaume Denoix de Saint Marc who serves as president of the AfVT (Please note that all the photographs are Copyright © 2014 Michel Pourny / AfVT.org, and are published here with their permission.)

Rue Copernic, October 2013

The bombing on narrow Rue Copernic has been called "one of the first contemporary terrorist strikes on a synagogue outside the Middle East" and "the first fatal attack against the French Jewish community since the Nazi occupation in World War II." The first, but unfortunately not the only or the last. Other attacks on France's Jews in recent decades are listed in a 2012 Bloomberg article here.          

Chart is based on Europol 2013 data. France takes a prominent role [Source]

France has seen many terror attacks, and their rate does not seem to be declining. According to a Europol report published in May 2014, France has substantially higher rates of terrorism within its borders than anywhere else in Europe (see "France is the terror capital of Europe, EUROPOL figures show"). 

It's a reflection of a larger problem; an analysis in the Wall Street Journal last month says

European authorities are ill-prepared to cope with what they themselves have identified as a top security threat: scores of suspected militants who are flocking home from the front lines of Syria’s bloody civil war, replete with battlefield training and European passports... French President François Hollande has warned the French public of “young men who are indoctrinated, brainwashed, and who can come back home with the worst plans in mind.” Islamic State has responded by calling on European nationals to mount terrorist attacks on their native soil... And yet France - a country that has some of the continent’s toughest antiterrorism legislation in place, and has poured financial and military resources into combating Islamist insurgencies abroad - is straining to cope with new threats... Easy, borders-free travel within the European Union makes it possible for suspected militants to hopscotch through the region, undetected.

The reality is, though there is a great deal of denial about this, that most authorities in most places are ill-prepared to cope with the threats posed by terrorists, certainly including the determined, ideologically-driven jihadists among them.

We say a fundamental part of preparing our societies for the challenges ahead is in honoring the memory of the victims, and protecting and upholding the core values of justice. Those constitute the most striking difference between the terrorists and those who will repulse and defeat them. That's why we salute those who who remember the victims and who continue to pursue the bombers who brought their barbarism to Paris's Rue Copernic.

13-Nov-14: 34 years later, the Rue Copernic terrorist-bomber may get his day in court

[Image Source]

Back in May 2014, we received an email from Association française des Victimes du Terrorisme, the French Association of Victims of Terror (website here), an active group with whom we have been in contact over the past decade. This letter concerned their campaign in support of the victims of a terror attack carried out in Paris no less than 34 years ago.

Here's our translation into English:

On October 3, 1980, a bomb concealed in the saddlebags of a motor-cycle exploded outside the synagogue on Rue Copernic in Paris at 6.37 pm, French time. It was a Friday evening, just before the onset of the Jewish Sabbath. The synagogue was packed with some 320 people inside. The explosion killed four people. Forty-six others were injured.
The criminal investigation showed that, fortunately, the bomb had exploded earlier than planned. Had it gone off when it was supposed to, the number of victims would have been much higher.
Although the perpetrators have never been brought to trial to this day, the French criminal investigation never ceased and several well-known French judges have led the case at various times.
Soon after the investigation began, it became evident that the perpetrator had left several clues including his passport number and a hand-written note. The suspect's name, Hassan Diab, appears 2,128 times in 281 documents from the investigation.
On November 5, 2008, a French magistrate Marc Trevidic, authorized the issue of an arrest warrant against a Canadian citizen, Hassan Diab, a professor of sociology at the University of Ottawa. France issued an official request to the Canadian authorities on December 12, 2008, seeking the extradition of Hassan Diab. They received a positive response from the Canadians. However, Hassan Diab has taken advantage of all the available legal means to delay the carrying out of the procedure. On October 2, 2013, the French Association of Victims of Terrorism (AfVT.org) held a press conference inside the synagogue of Rue Copernic synagogue, in order to demonstrate to the authorities and the public that the victims of the act of terror were still pursuing their rights.

The terror attack on the Rue Copernic synagogue took place not only on Sabbath eve, but also at the onset of one of Jewish tradition's most festive days, Simchat Torah. The bomb included 10 kilograms of Semtex explosives. The fact that all the dead victims were passers-by prompted the prime minister of the day, Raymond Barre, to call the bombing “a heinous act against Jews in a synagogue that struck four innocent Frenchmen crossing the street”. Wikipedia says it was

a comment which seemed to imply that the synagogue's members were neither innocent nor truly French. 

His statement fits with what we hear often in connection with terror: that the victims were somehow caught in the crossfire, the wrong place at the wrong time and innocent of any blame.

But the reality is that innocent people are always the target of terror. Anonymous, chance victimhood is a constant at the heart of the terrorists' strategy.

While suspicion initially fell on "neo-Nazis", the French police eventually shifted their suspicions onto a still-functioning, Marxist-Leninist terror group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, or PFLP, founded in 1953 by George Habash. It's still functioning today, though its ideological platform (apart from the nationalistic zeal and the race-based hatred) has become passé and mostly irrelevant; it remains the second-largest (behind Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah) faction in the PLO and a proscribed terrorist organization under the laws of the United States, Canada and the European Union.

French police and the immediate aftermath of the
1980 Rue Copernic assault [Image Source]

Which brings us back to Hassan Diab.

Earlier today, Canada's Supreme Court ruled against a request by Diab to hear his appeal against an order for him to be extradicted to France and to be questioned by the authorities there about his role in the 1980 terrorist attack. According to a Canadian Press report today,

The Canadian government said Diab's request for a Supreme Court hearing raised no issue of public importance and should be dismissed... Diab is now subject to "immediate removal," said Clarissa Lamb, a spokeswoman for Justice Minister Peter MacKay. Under the Extradition Act, Canada has 45 days to send Diab to France... The Justice Department's international assistance group is in discussions with the French to ensure Diab's removal takes place within the deadline, Lamb added. At this point, Diab is presumed to be innocent, the French Embassy in Ottawa said in a statement. In France, he will be heard by an investigating judge in an open judicial inquiry regarding the attack, an embassy spokesman said... Diab has garnered the backing of prominent people including former federal solicitor general Warren Allmand, linguistics professor and activist Noam Chomsky, and Sharry Aiken, associate dean of law at Queen's University... The RCMP arrested Diab, a Canadian of Lebanese descent, in November 2008 in response to a request by France."

The plaque inside the synagogue
recalls the victims' names [Image Source]

The French terror victims group wrote us again. Today they say (our translation) that they

welcome the court's decision and the new impetus that it will give to the still-ongoing French investigation. The AfVT is mobilizing alongside the victim families to help them obtain justice 34 years after the event. On October 3, 1980, the Rue Copernic bombing killed four people: Jean-Michel Barbe, Philippe Bouissou, Hilario Lopez Fernandez and Aliza Shagrir. 46 other people were injured and at least 250 more suffered damage to their property.

It's gratifying to see that those murdered by the person or persons who planted the bomb are remembered, not only in the aggregate but one by one, by name. And whether or not Hassan Diab is eventually convicted, it's encouraging that, though they do so slowly, the wheels of justice do still grind, at least in France and Canada.

There's a powerful lesson in this to those who expect - as Arafat did in his 1974 speech to the UN that we quoted yesterday - that today's terrorist is the following decade's hero. Sometimes, the remembrance of acts of terror continues for decades - and not only by the victims.

24-Oct-14: Attacks on security personnel and what we do and don't know

Canadian parliament building under attack on Wednesday [Image Source]

From The Economist ["Terror in Canada", October 25, 2014]

It was a sombre Stephen Harper who addressed Canadians on October 22nd. A lone gunman had fatally shot a young soldier standing guard at the National War Memorial in the capital, Ottawa, and then entered Canada’s parliament building where he was killed. The prime minister linked the shooting to the murder earlier in the week of another Canadian soldier. Both, he said, were a grim reminder that Canada is not immune to the type of terrorist attacks seen around the world. His government would redouble its efforts to work with its allies in fighting terrorist organisations abroad, the Conservative prime minister vowed. It would also “take all the necessary steps” to identify and counter threats at home...
Two things gave this week’s strike added impact. It badly frightened MPs, most of whom had gathered for weekly caucus meetings in rooms on either side of the corridor where the gunman exchanged fire with security officers. They used furniture to construct makeshift barricades and had to remain shut away for hours. Second, it took place amid a heated debate over the Conservative government’s decision to increase anti-terrorist powers at home and to join the military campaign led by the United States against Islamic State in Iraq.
Mr Harper chose to interpret the shooting as part of a broader bid by terrorist groups to bring “their savagery to our shores”... It was unclear... whether the gunman, a Canadian named Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, had links to any terrorist group, but he was described by a person who met him at a mosque in British Columbia as having a “disturbing” side, suggesting mental-health problems. Nor was there any sign of a link to Martin Couture-Rouleau, shot dead by police on October 20th after he struck two soldiers with his car, killing one, near a military academy in Quebec. Mr Couture-Rouleau was under sporadic surveillance and his passport had been seized because he was one of an estimated 130 Canadians whom the security services suspected of terrorist leanings.

Making sense of what Michael Zehaf-Bibeau and Martin Couture-Rouleau, the two men named here as the attackers (or the alleged attackers), sought to do or what motivated them is on the minds of many.

Reuters (without saying much about its sources) said yesterday that

some U.S. government sources said the shooter was born Michael Joseph Hall but changed his name to Zehaf-Bibeau. Two U.S. officials said that U.S. agencies have been advised that the shooter was a Canadian convert to Islam. 

CNN describes Zehaf-Bibeau as the son of a Libyan father and and a mother who is Canadian and the deputy chairwoman of the immigration division of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. She has been a refugee protection officer, legal adviser and manager of operational support, among other roles. It is her very moving words of apology that we quoted here yesterday. Her son, according to CNN, had a criminal record "related to drugs, violence and other criminal activities".

Canada's National Post ["‘He seemed like a typical and fairly boring convert': Inside Martin Rouleau’s rapid descent to extremism"] says that country's police, the RCMP

had been working with Martin Rouleau to help him overcome his extremist thinking and met with him just 11 days before he allegedly ran down two Canadian Forces members with his car in an apparent act of terrorism. At a news conference in Montreal, the Mounties outlined their four months of dealings with the 25-year-old radicalized Muslim convert, who came to RCMP attention in June when he began posting messages on Facebook suggesting he wanted to fight in Syria... The RCMP seized his passport, but there was not enough evidence to charge him and he was released... [National Post, October 21, 2014]

What is concrete among the various matters in doubt at at this point is that

• two uniformed Canadian security men are dead, and
• as we noted here two weeks ago ["13-Oct-14: Knowing there are people among us who exult in acts of terror, how concerned should we be now?"], there are well-publicized Islamist voices in the air right now calling for believers to "strike their police, security, and intelligence members... Embitter their lives for them and busy them with themselves. If you can kill a disbelieving American... or an Australian, or a Canadian, or any other disbeliever from the disbelievers waging war, including the citizens of the countries that entered into a coalition against the Islamic State, then rely upon Allah, and kill him in any manner or way however it may be. Do not ask for anyone’s advice and do not seek anyone’s verdict. Kill the disbeliever whether he is civilian or military, for they have the same ruling.”

The weapon used in yesterday's
New York hatchet attack

We are aware of the news reports from New York City this morning about a non-verbal axe-wielding man who tried to kill several policemen yesterday, Is there a connection? Too soon to know. [UPDATE Saturday night October 25, 2014: But there are some clear indications - see this post.]

But it's worth asking whether the coyness of the mainstream media about the current threats and their source is more conducive to people's safety or less.

24-Oct-14: When not knowing what to say can be the most powerful message

The victim, standing guard, just
minutes before he was killed
[Image Source]

It doesn't take carefully crafted speeches. Expressing sincere remorse for terrorism when the perpetrator is someone from your country, your faith, your community or (as in this case) your family can be an astonishingly effective thing.

The mother of the man accused of killing a soldier at Ottawa's war memorial then storming Parliament before being shot dead says she is crying for the victims of the shooting, not her son. In a brief and tear-filled telephone interview on Thursday, Susan Bibeau said she did not know what to say to those hurt in the attack. Just before 10am on Wednesday local time (1am AEDT Thursday), a gunman shot and killed Corporal Nathan Cirillo and then opened fire on the country's Parliament buildings. "Can you ever explain something like this?" she said. "We are sorry." [The Age, October 24, 2014]

The power and clarity is breathtaking.

(Corporal Cirillo was standing guard at Canada's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier War Memorial in Ottawa on Wednesday when he was shot and killed by a masked gunman. There were two dramatic shootings in Canada's capital that morning, the second one occurring inside the Parliament.)