COLIN PERKEL
Released : Saturday, June 14, 2008 4:47 AM
BRAMPTON, Ont., The star witness in the prosecution of an alleged homegrown terrorism cell testified Friday that he was ultimately paid $300,000 to infiltrate the increasingly fractious group and become a police informant.
Mubin Shaikh said the RCMP initially offered him $70,000. Although he said he``wasn't in it for the money,' he said he negotiated $77,000 because the amount had religious significance.
After the arrests of 18 people that garnered attention around the world two summers ago, Shaikh went back for more.
It wasn't that he was dissatisfied with the initial deal, he told Crown lawyer John Neander. It was more about reflecting the magnitude of what he had become involved in, court heard.
``This has just morphed into this huge thing,' Shaikh, 32, a married father, explained. ``It's lost on a lot of people that my life as it was in the community . . . in a single day changed.'
On his third straight day on the witness stand, Shaikh told Ontario Superior Court that mistrust between two of the alleged leaders led to a split in the Toronto-area group in the weeks before police swooped down.
Shaikh testified that one of the men viewed the other as a do-nothing braggart.
The trial had previously heard how the alleged leader of the group boasted about importing crates of high-powered weapons that never materialized, and talked about attacking the Parliament Buildings and beheading politicians.
``He really didn't have much to show for it,' Shaikh cited the one man as saying of the other's talk.
He felt the other man was ``exaggerating, blatantly lying about things,' Shaikh testified.
At the same time, the second man viewed the first as a weakling whose loss to the cause was no big deal.
``He's a weak link. Screw him, we don't need him,' Shaikh quoted the man as saying.
None of group's members can be identified by court order. The identity of the accused, who is now 20, is also protected because he was 17 at the time of his alleged offences.
The accused, who has pleaded not guilty, was among 18 people arrested over the summer of 2006 in what police allege was a terrorist plot aimed at wreaking havoc on Canadian targets. Since then, charges against seven accused, including three other youths, have been withdrawn or stayed.
The young man is the first to stand trial.
During a wiretapped conversation played for the court Friday, the accused expressed interest to Shaikh about going to fight in Iraq against the U.S.-led coalition, but seemed to have had little idea of the logistics in even getting there.
``I dismissed him,' Shaikh said.
Shaikh also told Justice John Sproat that the two alleged leaders became wary about what he was up to.
``You look like a spy,' one of the men said to him.
However, he said, they seemed more concerned that he was working for the opposing faction than for the police.
Court also heard how one of the alleged leaders claimed that two Americans from Georgia, who were charged in the U.S. with plotting terrorism in Toronto, had stayed with him for two weeks. He also said he knew another suspect detained in Bangladesh.
``(He) was really freaked out. He said he knew the guy,' Shaikh testified.
An al-Qaida propaganda video of Osama bin Laden praising the terrorist hijackers responsible for the 9/11 attacks on the United States, as well as attacks on Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, was played for the court.
The material was typical of the kind one of the group's alleged leaders would hand out on computer discs as a recruiting tool, Shaikh said.
Shaikh faces cross-examination when the trial continues on Monday.
