Presumably he thought that Allah was going to use him as an instrument of the divine wrath by derailing the Toronto-bound Via passenger train. So does he think that the foiling of the plot and his arrest are Allah punishing him? “God will send natural disasters to “˜punish” nations that “˜spread secularism,” VIA Rail terror suspect warns court,” by Megan O’Toole for the National Post, July 26 (thanks to Pamela Geller):
A Tunisian terror suspect accused of plotting to derail a Toronto-bound Via passenger train delivered a rambling diatribe in court Friday, suggesting the 2004 Indonesian tsunami was “punishment from God,” while the loss of life on 9/11 was “no comparison” to this catastrophic event.
Chiheb Esseghaier, 30, who was representing himself at a hearing on whether to unseal search warrants related to the Via plot, also lashed out at what he called a “godless civilization,” and warned of possible retribution from above.
“There is something extremely more serious that you didn’t worry about, which is the punishment of God,” Mr. Esseghaier told the court during a lengthy rant that focused largely on his long-standing refusal to recognize Canadian laws.
“The Criminal Code of Canada is not holy book coming from God,” said Mr. Esseghaier, clad in an orange prison jumpsuit and a heavy black beard. “The human is not perfect”¦ so the laws are not perfect. How can we make a judgement by laws that are not perfect?”
Justice Bruce Durno “” who warned at one point that Mr. Esseghaier should consider the fact that he was ultimately facing a jury trial “” eventually steered him back to the search-warrant documents, whose publication Mr. Esseghaier said he did not oppose, provided they did not impinge on his personal “privacy.”
But before he got there, Mr. Esseghaier spiralled into a bizarre rant about the 2004 tsunami, which killed hundreds of thousands of Indonesians. He portrayed it as God’s response to a “godless civilization,” going on to assert that the 3,000 lives lost in the 9/11 terrorist attacks were “no comparison” “” and suggesting worse fates may be in store for those who “spread secularism.”
However, Mr. Esseghaier added: “I am not perfect. I do not know the future.”
Mr. Esseghaier’s dramatic pronouncements overshadowed the search-warrant issue, which will be decided later this year. A media coalition, represented by lawyer Peter Jacobsen, has spent two days arguing for access to the documents, while lawyers for the Crown and defence contend the unsealing could jeopardize the accused’s fair-trial interests and harm “innocent third parties.”
Mr. Esseghaier and his co-accused, 35-year-old Raed Jaser, were arrested in April following an eight-month RCMP investigation. Accused of an al-Qaeda-linked plot to kill passengers on a New York to Toronto train, both stand charged with conspiracy to commit murder in association with a terrorist group, while a third suspect, Ahmed Abassi, 26, faces related charges in the United States….