A former St. Catharines resident has pleaded guilty in a U.S. court to conspiring to kill Americans and plotting to use "weapons of mass destruction" to destroy property.
Mohamed Mansour Jabarah is believed to be the first Canadian convicted of terrorism allegations since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
Jabarah pleaded guilty during a secret hearing to five charges in total, the Star has learned, and a source says he has been co-operating with U.S. authorities in an effort to reduce his sentence.
He will be in a federal court again at the end of March for a hearing, according to his father, and may be sentenced at that time.
A source familiar with the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the Star yesterday that Jabarah has pleaded guilty to four counts of conspiracy which include: to kill U.S. nationals; to destroy U.S. property abroad with weapons of mass destruction; to kill U.S. employees while on duty; to use U.S. weapons of mass destruction against American property.
The "weapons of mass destruction" are believed to refer to explosives, the source said, but the details of the plots that led to the conspiracy charges are not known.
A six-page indictment has been issued against Jabarah, but none of its contents are public.
Jabarah also pleaded guilty to a charge of providing a false statement.
The source said they do not know when Jabarah pleaded but that it was "some time ago."
Jabarah's New York lawyer, Richard Jasper, said yesterday he's unable to talk about the case while the matter is still before the courts.
"It's not in my client's interest to say anything about the case right now," Jasper said.
Jabarah's father, Mansour Jabarah, said in a telephone interview from Kuwait City that he has not spoken with his 21-year-old son since late October. In spite of repeated requests he has not been granted permission to visit him.
Mansour Jabarah said his son is innocent and that American authorities told him if he pleaded guilty he'd be let out of custody. Jabarah, a Kuwaiti-born Canadian citizen, has been held in an undisclosed location in New York state for almost two years. He was captured in Oman in February, 2002, and flown to Toronto before being transferred across the border.
While it has been reported that Jabarah had been co-operating with American agents and faced unknown charges, his case has been shrouded in secrecy. Hearings have been held in private. There is no listing of his case on New York court databases and prosecutors with the Southern District of New York state won't comment to reporters.
Jabarah reportedly confessed to acting as an intermediary between Al Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiah, a group believed responsible for bombings in Southeast Asia, including the Oct. 12, 2002, Bali blast that killed 202 people. A confidential FBI intelligence document summarizing his confessions and published in U.S. newspapers said Jabarah worked with Hambali, the reputed chief of operations for Jemaah Islamiah, and distributed cash for planned bombing attacks in Singapore, Malaysia and Philippines.
Last year the government of Singapore publicly released a report stating Jabarah admitted the plan included truck bombs to be used against the U.S. and Israeli embassies in Singapore.
Using the code name "Sammy," he was sent to Singapore as an Al Qaeda operative in 2001 to "conduct a final reconnaissance of U.S. targets for attack," the government document states.
The report called the plot, scheduled to be carried out against multiple targets in December, 2001, and early 2002, "developed and determined."
When the plot was foiled by the arrest of a key operative, a worldwide alert was issued for Jabarah. He was picked up in Oman and flown to Toronto.
Once in Canada, his family says he was convinced by agents from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) to travel south to talk with American authorities, and that he was told he'd only have to go to the United States for a short time. CSIS says he went voluntarily.
His father charges CSIS surrendered his son to American authorities, without explaining his rights to him, and he was duped into confessing.
"They made him plead guilty," Mansour Jabarah said yesterday.
"They gave him special accommodation, flew him from Oman to Toronto first class, and they put him in five-star (accommodation) and they gave him big hope and dream (that) he's going to be free in three or four days. `Just help us and admit you did so and so, and we are going to release you.'
"When they get all the information from him they told him `now you are not co-operating with us anymore and you are going to be in a private cell by yourself,'" the father said.
While Jabarah has been allowed telephone calls and to send letters to relatives in Kuwait and to his mother, who still lives in St. Catharines, he has been told not to discuss his case in their correspondence, his father said.
Born in Kuwait in 1982, Jabarah moved to St. Catharines with his family when he was 12, attending a Roman Catholic high school. Jabarah was said to have been attracted to radical Islam as a teenager, especially when he returned to Kuwait during summer holidays.
He allegedly told investigators that he and one of his brothers trained at Al Qaeda-related camps in Afghanistan.
The whereabouts of Jabarah's brother was unknown until last May, when Abdoul Rahman Jabarah and 18 other suspects escaped after a gunfight with Saudi police, leaving behind a cache of weapons that fuelled fears Al Qaeda was planning a massive attack.
One week later in Saudi Arabia, co-ordinated truck bombings ripped through compounds in Riyadh housing mostly foreigners, killing 34 people, including nine of the suicide bombers, and leaving hundreds more injured.
Twenty-three-year old Abdoul Rahman Jabarah was fingered as one of the key organizers and $100,000 was offered for his capture.
American authorities said he had connections to former Al Qaeda operations chief and Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed who, until his capture in Pakistan last March 1, was allegedly trying to lead the terror group's efforts to re-establish its global network of cells.
Abdoul Rahman Jabarah was killed by Saudi Arabian security forces last July.
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