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| Khadr Laptop Seized at Pearson Airport |
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03/03/2005
MICHELLE SHEPHARD
STAFF REPORTER
Police have seized a laptop from the daughter of an accused terrorist financier because they believe it holds vital information about Al Qaeda's operations, court documents state.
Canadian Zaynab Khadr is being investigated by an RCMP-led unit under anti-terrorism laws introduced in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The 25-year-old came to Canada from Pakistan two weeks ago, when her computer, cellphone and handwritten documents were seized at Toronto's Pearson International Airport.
As part of the sworn information used to obtain a search warrant for her possessions, the lead investigator on Khadr's case wrote, "I believe that Zaynab Khadr has willingly participated and contributed both directly and indirectly towards enhancing the ability of Al Qaeda to facilitate its criminal activities."
It's also alleged that she operated as an intermediary for her eldest brother Abdullah, who once trained at an Al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan and is now believed to be under arrest.
While much is known about Khadr's family, mainly through interviews family members have given to the media, the 44-page document filed by police with the court provides the first record of how Canadian authorities see the family's alleged involvement in Al Qaeda.
The affidavit contains allegations that have not been proved in court.
RCMP Sgt. Konrad Shourie writes in the document that he believes "the entire family is affiliated with Al Qaeda and has participated in some form or another with these criminal extremist elements."
Shourie notes that data stored on computers have helped in past Al Qaeda investigations, citing the seizure of a laptop belonging to Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, a 25-year-old alleged Al Qaeda computer expert who was arrested last July. Surveillance information on buildings in New York, Washington and New Jersey was stored on his computer, Pakistani officials said. It has been reported that the arrests of eight men in Britain were linked to this intelligence.
Khadr family members contacted yesterday said they did not want to comment on the court documents or the investigation.
In an interview with the Toronto Star last Friday, Zaynab Khadr said she left Islamabad, Pakistan, with her young daughter and teenaged sister because her mother was lonely and she felt she could advocate on behalf of Abdullah and her younger brother Omar, who is being held at Guantanamo Bay, more effectively from Canada.
She denied her family's involvement with Al Qaeda and played down the significance of Osama bin Laden's attendance at her 1999 wedding in the interview.
Khadr, twice divorced, now lives with other family members in a small Scarborough apartment. The family is fighting for the release of Khadr's younger brother, Omar, who is Canada's only known detainee at the U.S. camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The 18-year-old is accused of throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. army medic during an American attack on a suspected Al Qaeda stronghold. Omar, then 15, was the only survivor of the fight but was shot and lost sight in one eye.
The eldest son in the family, Abdullah, had been in hiding since 9/11 and emerged publicly last year only to quell rumours that he was the suicide bomber who took the life of a Canadian soldier in Afghanistan. He has not been heard from since last October and is believed now to be in the custody of American or Pakistani authorities.
The family patriarch, Ahmed Said Khadr, died in an October 2003 battle in Pakistan and was alleged to be funnelling money to Al Qaeda through his charity organization, court documents state. He had been charged in the 1995 Egyptian embassy bombing in Islamabad, Pakistan, but was released when then prime minister Jean Chrétien intervened on his behalf in 1996.
The information provided for the RCMP search warrant relies heavily on a CBC reporter's interviews with Zaynab Khadr and her mother while they lived in Pakistan, and Zaynab's 22-year-old brother Abdurahman Khadr — who declared, among other startling comments aired in the March 2003 documentary, that he grew up in an "Al Qaeda family."
Shourie writes: "(T)he sole purpose of the Khadr patriarch's existence (was to create) his own `terrorist cell' and indoctrinate his children from an early age in the values and beliefs of the criminal extremists, specifically Al Qaeda."
He also highlights a quote from the documentary when Zaynab Khadr said, "I don't have the guts to do that (become a suicide bomber) yet," and calls it an "unsettling comment."
Khadr is being investigated by members of one of the four RCMP-led enforcement units created in the wake of 9/11, known as the Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams. Court documents state that Khadr is being investigated as part of a probe known as O Canada, which was built on information from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and involves many high profile cases.
SOURCE: Toronto Star |
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