OTTAWA — Shortly after his Air Canada flight arrived at Heathrow, Mohammad Momin Khawaja was offered some important advice from a friend who picked him up.
The topic of conversation was security measures: how not to be infiltrated. Just so “we don't end up in Cuba, or in jail somewhere,” said terrorist ringleader Omar Khyam.
Little did he know that surveillance had pinpointed his vehicle, a Suzuki Vitara (licence plate GV53 WHA), watched him park it temporarily at the airport (Zone F, Level 3) and then load the Canadian's bags into the back and drive off. It had also monitored their conversation, Mr. Khawaja's trial heard on Thursday.
During the hour-long drive to his flat, Mr. Khyam told his Canadian guest they ought to obey some simple rules: Don't ever disobey the “emir,” or leader. Stick to your own “cell.” Check the backgrounds of any newcomers.
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Once inside the flat, Mr. Khawaja offered some advice of his own. It concerned a remote-control device he had been working on, according to the video and audio evidence aired in Ontario Superior Court.
“You have one transmitter, you could have like five receivers,” he said. “The receiver gets the signal … you have the detonator wires hooked up, that will send a charge down the wire.”
None of the video or audio evidence is being contested by lawyers acting for Mr. Khawaja, 29, an alleged bomb-plotter who was the first man charged under Canada's Anti-Terrorism Act.
The MI5 spies who first spotted Mr. Khawaja visiting Britain for a weekend in February, 2004, gave him the codename “Undue Haste,” after he stepped into the midst of their continuing surveillance dragnet.
Crown authorities, first in Britain and now in Canada, have compiled a down-to-the-minute chronology of Mr. Khawaja's movements in Britain, as he met individuals who now stand convicted in the U.K. of plotting bombings. This evidence reveals information to which the Crown's star witness, who was based in Pakistan at the time of the conspiracy, was not privy.
On the tapes, Mr. Khawaja doesn't do the bulk of the talking. That was left to Mr. Khyam, the British ringleader who regarded “emirs” as important, most probably because he was one. The evidence from his bugged jeep shows that he started the weekend with a pep talk about security, but finished it expressing resignation that police roundups would probably occur within a month.
It turned out to be an eerily accurate forecast. Mr. Khyam and four co-accused were arrested in March, 2004, and are now sentenced to life for their role in a bomb-plot conspiracy. The alleged Canadian conspirator, Mr. Khawaja, was arrested at the same time, but his trial only started last month.
The intercept evidence clearly shows the extent to which MI5 and Scotland Yard used physical surveillance, photographers, closed-circuit cameras, hidden microphones and forensic computer science to reconstruct a blow-by-blow of the alleged conspiracy. It appears that little of Mr. Khawaja's three-day visit to London – or rather its suburbs of Uxbridge, Slough and Crawley – went unobserved.
But there are some gaps. For example, it is uncertain whether Mr. Khawaja had direct dealings with the man later known as the lead “7/7” suicide bomber, who was part of the same wider social circle.
Even if Mr. Khawaja and Mr. Khan never met, they certainly came close, as they both apparently answered to the same boss.
