Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Alleged terrorist training camp was purely 'recreational,' Crown witness testifies

BRAMPTON, Ont. - A witness at an anti-terrorism trial in Brampton, Ont., says a camp he attended in May 2006 was recreational.

University of Toronto student Sahl Syed testified Tuesday he saw nothing to suggest any kind of terrorist training was going on. Syed's evidence came at the trial of a young man arrested along with 17 others in the Toronto area two summers ago and charged with terrorism-related offences.

Police allege the camp just east of Guelph, Ont., was the second such terrorist-training facility the accused attended.

A video taken by one of the participants shows campers goofing around in the water and on hikes.

It also shows them in fatigues with faces covered sitting in a tent in a scene Syed says was designed to look like a "resistance video seen on the Internet."

Syed, 21, testified he knew the accused and some of the others charged from high school in east end Toronto.

He told Ontario Superior Court he met the alleged leader of the group only two weeks before the camp while walking to mosque, and the friendship was completely casual.

He said only learned that he was going to the camp the morning they left.

No comments: