Mohammad Momin Khawaja (born April 14, 1979 in Ottawa, Ontario) is a Canadian found guilty of involvement in a plot to plant fertilizer bombs in the United Kingdom; while working as a software engineer under contract to the Foreign Affairs department in 2004 became the first person charged and found guilty under the Canadian Anti-Terrorism Act following the proof that he communicated with British Islamists plotting a bomb attack.
In summer 2003, the 24-year-old Khawaja began visiting paintball and pellet gun ranges with friends, signing in at the desk with pseudonyms.
[7] During this time, Khawaja also began corresponding with Zeba Khan after reading her articles on the internet, and arranged to once again travel to Pakistan to meet her, going out to dinner with her and Babar.
[11] The initial two charges against Khawaja were boosted to seven counts, following Babar's telling of events, and a publication ban prevented the media from reporting on details revealed during legal hearings.
[12] Represented by attorney Lawrence Greenspon,[5] Khawaja was told to expect a direct indictment leading to a trial beginning in 2006.
Greenspon, Khawaja’s lawyer, said a major problem comes when police launch investigations into whether someone might be a terrorist simply because of their religious or political beliefs.
However, Federal prosecutor Nick Devlin argued that people do not develop prejudices against members of particular religions because of Criminal Code provisions such as the motive clause, which does not mention Muslims or any other group by name.
[3][17] The Supreme Court reviewed the Khawaja case to examine the constitutionality of the definition of "terrorist activity" in the criminal code.
The main issue focuses on the motive clause, which states that terrorist activity is that committed, "in whole or in part for a political, religious or ideological purpose, objective or cause."
Voluminous email correspondence attested in graphic detail to the appellant’s ideological commitment to violent "jihad" and to his acts in Canada and elsewhere to further jihad-inspired terrorist activities.
He entered into covert email correspondence with Mohammed Junaid Babar, an American of Pakistani descent who eventually pleaded guilty in New York City to five counts of providing material support or resources to al Qaeda.
He also communicated extensively with Omar Khyam, the leader of a terrorist cell based in London, England, who was convicted along with several co-conspirators of a plot to bomb targets in the U.K. and elsewhere in Europe.
He designed a remote arming device for explosives that the police referred to as the "Hi-Fi Digimonster", and offered to smuggle it into the U.K. and train the U.K. cell on its use.