Via Rail terror suspect considered triggering U.S. volcano, court hears

[spaminator]

Via Rail terror suspect considered triggering U.S. volcano, court hears
02/17/2015 01:34 PM The Canadian Press
A man accused of plotting to derail a passenger train in Canada apparently also thought about triggering a volcanic blast to cause a catastrophe in the United States.
An undercover FBI agent says Chiheb Esseghaier pondered the possibility of getting the volcano in Yellowstone National Park to erupt.
The agent testified in a Toronto court on Tuesday that the PhD student from Montreal believed an eruption would cause a national disaster for his “worst enemies.”
However, court heard Esseghaier concluded ultimately it would be too difficult to make a blast happen.
As a result, the focus shifted back to the idea of derailing a Via Rail passenger train en route to Toronto from New York City. The idea was to cut out five or six metres of track.
Not-guilty pleas have been entered for Esseghaier and his co-accused Raed Jaser, who both face multiple terror-related charges in the alleged plot to derail the train.
Via Rail terror plot suspects Chiheb Esseghaier and Raed Jaser appear in a Toronto court on Feb. 17, 2015. CITYNEWS/Marianne Boucher

Via Rail terror suspect considered triggering U.S. volcano, court hears | CityNews

 

[Locutus]

how very lex luther.

 

[lone wolf]

Pop a volcano ... fracking or hocus-pocus pinkies from the magic carpet?

 

[spaminator]

are any nukes aimed at the Yellowstone supervolcano? :shock:

 

[Liberalman]

A stupid is as a stupid does

 

[WLDB]

No wonder the guy was caught. Clearly an idiot.

 

[spaminator]

Will co-accused's crazy behaviour win new trial for VIA Rail terrorist?
Author of the article:Michele Mandel
Published Jan 17, 2023 • 3 minute read

The terror twins are still tied at the hip.


Chiheb Esseghaier, the would-be al-Qaida terrorist convicted in 2015 of plotting to derail a Toronto-bound passenger train, has abandoned his appeal.


But almost eight years later, his co-accused fights on and on.

Now Raed Jaser is hoping to use the “erratic behaviour” of Esseghaier during their notorious court case to argue that he didn’t receive a fair trial and his convictions should be quashed. Jaser wants to get his hands on Essesghaier’s most recent psychiatric assessment, hoping it will show he was mentally unfit.

There’s certainly no question that his co-accused was strange, to say the least. During countless interactions with Justice Michael Code, he refused to participate in his own trial, proclaiming that he could only be judged only under the Qur’an — to the point that the accommodating judge agreed to begin each court day with a declaration that Esseghaier didn’t recognize the court’s jurisdiction and was just a “visitor” offering advice.


As the trial continued, he became even more unhinged. With his wild eyes and tangled beard, the 33-year-old Tunisian PhD student spit, threw water at a lawyer appointed to assist him, banged on the Plexiglas and launched into lengthy lectures about how he was a prophet created by God to “warn mankind.”

Esseghaier was convinced God was transporting him to heaven via a plane on Dec. 25, 2014, and it couldn’t be 2015 because he was still alive. He also claimed prison guards were really filmmakers chronicling his life.


Several times, after many warnings about his outbursts, Code had him temporarily ejected from the courtroom.

Jaser’s trial lawyer had attempted to have his client tried separately because he worried Esseghaier‘s religious tirades would taint them both before the jury, but Code refused.


It was only after his conviction and while awaiting sentencing that Esseghaier was assessed — and it didn’t go well. The judge angrily rejected the first report that found Esseghaier was schizophrenic and suggested he might have been too mentally ill to even stand trial in the first place.

Code ordered a second assessment which was more to his liking: that psychiatrist agreed Esseghaier likely suffers from schizophrenia, but was legally fit.

Now a third psychiatric assessment was done for an appeal that Esseghaier has since abandoned and Jaser’s lawyers are hoping it could be the magic ticket they’ve been looking for.

For example, they argued, Jaser wanted to re-elect and be tried by judge alone but Esseghaier, since he refused to participate, wouldn’t agree so it remained a trial by judge and jury for them both. If Esseghaier wasn’t mentally fit at the time, they said, that unfairly deprived Jaser of the trial he wanted.


The appeal court saw Jaser’s point.

“We intend no comment on the ultimate merits of the submissions outlined above,” the panel said in a decision released Tuesday. “The argument is a viable one, meaning that evidence of Esseghaier’s fitness to stand trial could be received as fresh evidence on Jaser’s appeal.”

But what about Esseghaier’s privacy — should this third psychiatric report be disclosed to his former co-accused?

Lawyers tried to contact the convicted terrorist at his B.C. prison to get his views on the issue, but not surprisingly, Esseghaier hasn’t responded.

So before the court of appeal will release its contents to Jaser, they’ve asked to examine it themselves.


For Jaser, a former Markham moving company employee and would-be jihadist, this is just the latest step in an endless attempt to have his conviction overturned.

But the jury didn’t convict him because of his buddy’s loopy behaviour — it was due to his own chilling words on those FBI intercepts, like his musing excitedly about assassinating “rich Jews” with a sniper rifle.

Jaser only bailed on the rail plot on Sept. 24, 2012 because he feared they were going to get caught — not because he had second thoughts.

But how time flies — he’s technically eligible for parole this year.

mmandel@postmedia.com

MANDEL: Will co-accused's crazy behaviour win new trial for VIA Rail terrorist?

One of the two convicted in the 2012 plot to derail a Toronto-bound train wants access to the new psych assessment of his co-accused

torontosun.com