A prominent Egyptian-Canadian Muslim, Shaher Elsohemy was paid $4 million by the

Royal Canadian Mounted Police The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP; french: Gendarmerie royale du Canada; french: GRC, label=none), commonly known in English as the Mounties (and colloquially in French as ) is the federal police, federal and national police service of ...

for his role in infiltrating the alleged terrorist plot in the

2006 Toronto terrorism case The 2006 Ontario terrorism case refers to the plotting of a series of attacks against targets in Southern Ontario, Canada, and the June 2, 2006 counter-terrorism raids in and around the Greater Toronto Area that resulted in the arrest of 14 adu ...

; although some have claimed he acted as an

agent provocateur An agent provocateur () is a person who commits, or who acts to entice another person to commit, an illegal or rash act or falsely implicate them in partaking in an illegal act, so as to ruin the reputation of, or entice legal action against, th ...

, their claim failed in court. He was given legal immunity to "knowingly facilitate a terrorist activity" and asked to help the accused acquire

credit card A credit card is a payment card issued to users (cardholders) to enable the cardholder to pay a merchant for goods and services based on the cardholder's accrued debt (i.e., promise to the card issuer to pay them for the amounts plus the o ...

s and purchase explosives. After the arrests, he was subsequently placed in

witness protection Witness protection is security provided to a threatened person providing testimonial evidence to the justice system, including defendants and other clients, before, during, and after a trial, usually by police. While a witness may only require p ...

for his safety. CBC
2nd mole played key role in bomb plot probe
October 13, 2006

Life

The

Agricultural engineering Agricultural engineering, also known as agricultural and biosystems engineering, is the field of study and application of engineering science and designs principles for agriculture purposes, combining the various disciplines of mechanical, civil ...

graduate studied and spent much of his early life in

Cairo, Egypt Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo me ...

, but returned to Canada in 2000 and started a five-year career as a

flight attendant A flight attendant, also known as steward/stewardess or air host/air hostess, is a member of the aircrew aboard commercial flights, many business jets and some government aircraft. Collectively called cabin crew, flight attendants are pri ...

for

Air Canada Air Canada is the flag carrier and the largest airline of Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocea ...

.El Akkad, Omar and Colin Freeze. '' The Globe and Mail'', “Police had second mole in terror plot: Informant expected to be key witness”, October 14, 2006 Described as a man who "loved the good life", he once took a friend on a one-day trip to Poland simply because they wanted to try eating duck properly. Another time, he began describing his favourite restaurant to a friend and decided to take him on a one-day trip to

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the souther ...

to eat at the restaurant. He left his job to open his own

catering Catering is the business of providing food service at a remote site or a site such as a hotel, hospital, pub, aircraft, cruise ship, park A park is an area of natural, semi-natural or planted space set aside for human enjoyment and r ...

business, which closed the following year. Changing his direction, he opened a new businesses, setting up a

travel agency A travel agency is a private retailer or public service that provides travel and tourism-related services to the general public on behalf of accommodation or travel suppliers to offer different kinds of travelling packages for each destinat ...

Role in the plot

On April 29, 2006, Elsohemy was asked by the

Canadian Security Intelligence Service The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS, ; french: Service canadien du renseignement de sécurité, ''SCRS'') is Canada's primary national intelligence agency. It is responsible for collecting, analysing, reporting and disseminating i ...

(CSIS) — with whom he was asked to volunteer as an

informant An informant (also called an informer or, as a slang term, a “snitch”) is a person who provides privileged information about a person or organization to an agency. The term is usually used within the law-enforcement world, where informant ...

— to set up a meeting between himself and the

. He told the police agency that he was willing to infiltrate the group they were monitoring. Negotiations started at $15 million. It is believed that his help "stopping the terrorist act, would be worthy of that amount".

Michael Friscolanti Michael Friscolanti is a senior writer with ''Maclean's'' magazine, and the author of the book ''Friendly Fire: The Untold Story of the U.S. Bombing that Killed Four Canadian Soldiers in Afghanistan''. Previously he was a reporter for the ''National ...

Maclean's ''Maclean's'', founded in 1905, is a Canadian news magazine reporting on Canadian issues such as politics, pop culture, and current events. Its founder, publisher John Bayne Maclean, established the magazine to provide a uniquely Canadian persp ...

The four-million dollar rat
, February 7, 2007 The RCMP negotiated with him for six hours but were unable to convince him to help them for any less than $13.4 million, and at 10pm, they agreed to schedule a meeting the following day to continue their negotiation. The RCMP refused to meet his demands and the meeting ended still without resolution, although an internal memo stated that the police force had better agree to meet his price or else he might "become hostile as a witness, difficult to control and seek other avenues to be compensated". At their final meeting, the police agreed they would pay him an award of $500,000 although the cost of relocation and protection was estimated at 4.1 million. He was given legal immunity to "knowingly facilitate a terrorist activity" and asked to help the accused acquire

s and purchase

ammonium nitrate Ammonium nitrate is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is a white crystalline salt consisting of ions of ammonium and nitrate. It is highly soluble in water and hygroscopic as a solid, although it does not form hydrates. It ...

from disguised police officers, and to facilitate the storage of the explosive fertilizer in a Newmarket warehouse. He was given $2000 by

Shareef Abdelhaleem A database engineer, Friscolanti, Michael, Maclean's, "It Comes Down to These Four", June 9, 2008 Muhammad Shareef Abdelhaleem is one of 17 people initially arrested in the 2006 Toronto terrorism arrests. He is alleged to have plotted coordinated ...

as an alleged downpayment to purchase the explosives since he had an agricultural engineering degree. CBC
Among the Believers; Timeline
/ref> A month later, both intelligence and police units co-operated to stage a series of raids across the Greater Toronto Area, arresting 16 young men and an older man alleged to have acted as their ringleader. By April 2008, seven of the alleged terrorists, including the alleged ringleader, were released after the

Crown A crown is a traditional form of head adornment, or hat, worn by monarchs as a symbol of their power and dignity. A crown is often, by extension, a symbol of the monarch's government or items endorsed by it. The word itself is used, partic ...

suggested there was no evidence they had planned anything themselves.

CTV CTV may refer to: Television * Connected TV, or Smart TV, a TV set with integrated internet North America and South America * CTV Television Network, a Canadian television network owned by Bell Media ** CTV 2, a secondary Canadian televisio ...

Alleged ring leader in Ont. terror case gets bail
, November 5, 2007

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Elsohemy, Shaher 2006 Ontario terrorism plot

Life

Role in the plot

See also

References