generalspeaking

Ironies Abound

Democratic countries seem completely immersed in portraying themselves as fair and liberal to the point of leaving themselves vulnerable to the very adverse forces that make their mission one of destroying the very basis of democratic freedoms. We are so utterly concerned that we do the right thing that we insist, detrimentally, on upholding the civil rights of those whose concerns are completely at odds with our own.

Those for whom laws guaranteeing freedoms to individuals that make up the diverse populations of the developed world are the unmistakable sign of degraded values. Whose relentless ambition is to replace liberal democracies and the freedoms they enshrine with rigid authoritarianism.

To replace secular rule of the people by the people with freedom-repressive ideologies or fundamentalist theocracies, re-structuring society in a manner commensurate with the agendas of the powerful, restrictive, state- or crown- or deist-designed overseers who brook no criticisms, permit no personal freedoms.

Of course the alternate is to meet rigid authoritarianism halfway by practising the same close-minded, suspicious, justice-abandoned strictures that they would. It's a fine line indeed for a country's justice system to weigh the balance between lawful and criminally unlawful behaviour, most particularly in the apprehension of plots whose design is to destroy that very system that veers unerringly toward justice.

Evidence in a court of law must be substantial enough to indict a suspected malefactor. An argument presented on the part of the state to convince a judge or a jury, or both, of the malevolent intent and careful planning of events meant to subvert the state, or, in the prosecution of hate-mongering attacks - the commission of atrocities meant to exact as many human deaths as possible - must be inviolable to the challenge of the defendant claiming innocence.

Yet in many instances, doubt is raised simply because the character of the evidence is inconclusive, although fairly reflective of the intent of the person charged. Add to that the mind games involved in a clever lawyer intimately aware of precedents and loopholes in some aspects of state law, undertaking to demonstrate his professional showmanship, less focused on justice, and more on his foxy abilities to challenge an imperfect case.

The trial of Momin Khawaja in Ottawa, which has just concluded a month of testimony is one of those cliff-hangers, no one with an insider's knowledge quite being able to grasp how the presiding judge will find; whether for the state or for the defence. His lawyer, Lawrence Greenspon, has delighted in casting doubt on the Crown's case, although even he does not really know whether his client is guilty as charged.

Mr. Greenspon deliberately chose not to ask Mr. Khawaja whether, in fact, he is guilty. Preferring instead to work the case untroubled by the personal knowledge of his client's guilt. Preferring to exercise his brilliant courtroom challenges in a demonstration of his comfort with Canadian law, in a direct challenge to the judge to acquit his client on the basis of insufficient direct evidence of complicity in a plot to bomb central areas of London, England.

That his client, Momin Khawaja, is a self-acknowledged jihadist who, on the record, sees nothing amiss in Muslim mujaheddin sacrificing innocent civilians to their war against the West in the conviction that all Westerners are symbolically guilty of assaults against Islam, is of no concern to his lawyer. That his client's intent was to lend his talents, his ambitions and his finances to the work of jihad that ultimately targeted either civilians in a Western city, or combatants in a foreign country is simply grist for Mr. Greenspon's lawyerly talents.

It is not only Canada whose national jurisdictional theatres of justice have met with obstacles to the state attempting to identify and bring furtive enemies of the state and its people to an accounting and out of practical commission. The United States, whose avowed purpose, post 9-11. is to combat terrorism whenever and wherever it raises its raging head, has also experienced instances where a defendant's lawyers have met success in winning acquittal.

The much-publicized trial of seven men in London, suspects in plots to explode airliners over the Atlantic in 2006, saw verdicts that failed to convict the accused of plotting and attempting to blow up those airliners. Three of the suspects were found guilty of complicity to murder, but none of the accused faced guilty verdicts over smuggling explosives onto aircraft. The Crown, as a result of the unanticipated verdict, plans to appeal.

Mr. Khawaja's lawyer jeers at the Crown's lack of what he insists is fully culpable evidence. He claims that should the Crown be successful in reaching a conviction through the decision of Ontario Superior court Justice Douglas Rutherford, it would be tantamount to overthrowing the principles of fundamental justice in a democracy, making Canadian justice more akin to that meted out by the terrorists we seek to protect ourselves from, than what we purport to represent.

A clever ploy, to jab at our collective sense of complacent rightness, that we seek only to defend ourselves from the deadly intent and bloody onslaughts of dedicated jihadists. Clever indeed, but exactly who is it surrendering principles in this very particular instance? The Crown has demonstrated beyond a doubt, thanks to the very words of the accused himself in expressing his thoughts through emails sent to friends that he is a committed jihadist.

That it was his intent to make himself part of the universal jihadist movement, to aid in the incitement to murder, expounding a fascist ideology of destruction of those whom Islamists deem unworthy and in direct opposition to their very ideology of raging hatred, appears undeniable. But this is merely an item to be shrugged off as irrelevant to the charges, according to Mr. Greenspon.

Perhaps this is begging the question, but why would an Ottawa-based Canadian take such great measures to travel to London, England - to meet directly with co-conspirators other than to aid and assist, as his continual reassurances to the London plotters attest - than to join their quest to wreak atrocities there? To spend endless hours perfecting an explosive-trigger for use in Afghanistan, where they are readily available to the Taliban makes no practical sense.

Mr. Khawaja's aspirations did indeed reach beyond merely disturbing the peace in the West, since it was also his intention to fight for the cause he espoused in Afghanistan too, among the mujaheddin he so admired. Which is to say, a Canadian Muslim exercising the intent to build toward a future event where he would become actively engaged in trying to eradicate as many Canadian troops and other allied military personnel as possible.

That a clever Jewish lawyer, not content with his current reputation as one who takes on difficult court cases, determined to win acquittals and burnish his reputation further, sets out to thumb the nose of the Crown through the manipulation and misrepresentation of legalities in the prosecution of an avowed jihadist, is unfortunate to the end degree. His flamboyant flouting of conventional legal interpretations does him no credit.

That a murder-prone hater of Jews and Christians who blithely expressed satisfaction at the deaths of same wherever they occurred, in New York, Washington, Pennsylvania or Israel as fodder for the cause, is defended by a Jew, remains one of life's perplexing little conundrums.

Labels: Canada, Conflict, Justice, Social-Cultural Deviations

posted by Pieface @ Sunday, September 14, 2008