A police informant testified last week that the leader of an alleged terrorist plot to attack high-profile Canadian buildings and take members of Parliament hostage was well-developed and widespread. Authorities said that the alleged plotters, who cannot be identified because of a publication ban, wanted Muslim prisoners being held in Afghanistan released. One of the lawyers of the accused, Mitchell Chernovsky, has called the alleged terror plot a fantasy. The informant, Mubin Shaikh testified that the terror plan was well-developed prior to his involvement as a paid police informant in the fall of 2005. Shaikh explained that its members met regularly at a half-dozen or more Islamic centres and mosques in the Greater Toronto Area and at one in Scarborough, a leader bragged that the regularly distributed jihadi CDs to disaffected Muslim youth.
