Terror plot leader won’t be eligible for parole until 2016
Zakaria Amara, who confessed last fall to playing a leading role in the Toronto 18 terror plot, was sentenced to life in prison by an Ontario Superior Court judge on Monday. Justice Bruce Durno described the conspiracy to set off fertilizer bombs outside the CSIS and Toronto Stock Exchange buildings in downtown Toronto and at a military base in Ontario as “spine-chilling,” adding that, had Amara and his co-conspirators proved successful, they would have perpertrated “the most horrific crime Canada has ever seen.” Amara, whom the judge said was the “directing mind” behind the bomb plot, was also chastised for his role as “an active recruiter who influenced young men” and, in some cases, “led some to jail terms.” In an open-letter to the court, Amara confessed last Thursday to have gone down “the road of extremism,” but claimed to have since abandoned his belief in the radical ideology. He will be eligible for parole in 2016.