The Crown yesterday called the firebombing of Montreal's United Talmud Torah school "an act of terrorism" on Canadian soil and urged a judge to send its teenaged author behind bars for at least two years.
Prosecutor Anne Aubé said the torching of the Jewish grade-school library was an act of "revenge" and "intimidation" that targeted one community but attacked Canadian values as a whole.
Sleiman El-Merhebi pleaded guilty to setting the fire on April 5 in response to Israel's assassination of Hamas spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin. Yesterday, the 19-year-old sat stonily in the prisoner's box listening to presentencing arguments.
"This case is an act of terrorism, an isolated act of terrorism that doesn't come from a terrorist organization, but terrorism nonetheless," Ms. Aubé told Quebec Court Judge Jean Sirois.
Mr. El-Merhebi's lawyer, Pierre Poupart, argued that the first-time offender should serve his sentence in the community, not in jail. Ideally, the defence lawyer said, Mr. El-Merhebi would work with the needy in Montreal's Jewish community.
But the Crown said the arsonist deserved a sentence that would land him in a federal penitentiary. Ms. Aubé said Mr. El-Merhebi was not merely a prank-prone teen acting impulsively on April 5 when he lobbed kerosene canisters through the smashed library window and destroyed more than 10,000 children's books.
She said his act was premeditated -- he bought the kerosene two days before the attack -- and then he coldly worked out an alibi.
A police wiretap presented in court yesterday picked up a conversation in which Mr. El-Merhebi told a buddy he was at a concert that night and "a million people can say I was there." In fact, he slipped out of the concert for 30 minutes to commit the crime.
In the same wiretap, Mr. El-Merhebi confessed to the friend and asked: "Will I have to go to prison?"
"Not if it's vandalism," the friend responded.
"This isn't vandalism; it's terrorism," Mr. El-Merhebi replied.
The Crown called the library-burning an act of violence carried out for political ends, and said it is "unacceptable" to hold a Canadian ethnic community accountable for a conflict an ocean away.
"Mr. El-Merhebi attacked the fundamental code of values of our society," Ms. Aubé said.
"Montreal is one of the rare places on the planet where so many different communities meet, work and live in harmony. With acts like Mr. El-Merhebi's, it's not just the Jewish community that's attacked; it's the entire country."
Judge Sirois will hand down his sentence on Jan. 18.
Ms. Aubé said that while police never concluded that Mr. El-Merhebi was linked to any groups, "it emerges from this file that he did not act alone." While Mr. El-Merhebi is the only suspect convicted in the arson of the school, prior court testimony indicates at least one other person was involved.
During his bail hearing in May, which until now was under a publication ban, police wiretaps implicated another youth identified only as Ahmed.
Mr. El-Merhebi's defence lawyer suggested at the time that Ahmed accompanied Mr. El-Merhebi to the crime scene. Ahmed was arrested and questioned, but released.
In one wiretap, Mr. El-Merhebi told a friend to wait until he was out of Canada and suggested his friend report Ahmed to collect a $50,000 reward.
"This person did not act alone. . . . I'm convinced there were other people who acted with him," Jeffrey Boro, a veteran criminal lawyer and president of the Canadian Jewish Congress in Quebec, said yesterday. "I can't accept this as a childish prank." A source said a third person was investigated but never charged.