| Submit your comments on this article | ||||
| Great White North | ||||
| Khawaja 'not the brightest,' but not a terrorist: Ex-fiancee | ||||
| 2008-07-23 | ||||
| OTTAWA - The prosecution closed its case against Momin Khawaja Tuesday, its final witness testifying the young Muslim was angry over Iraq and Afghanistan but showed no sign he was a terrorist intent on bombing London. "Just because he supports them (violent jihadists) in theory is not actually proof of his involvement as such . . . it's not the same as blowing up London," Zeba Khan, Khawaja's former finance, told the court via video link from Dubai. "Jihad and terrorism are different things."
During the first interview at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad that July, Khan referred to one of several e-mails from Khawaja expressing his plan to join the mujahedeen fight against western military in Afghanistan. "I never thought that he would ever take it seriously, that he would do anything, see. This is all just talk. My sister was like, 'You know what? This guys seems like, really extreme, you know? He seems like he's very much supporting of like blowing things up and stuff.' "And my response to her was, 'I bet he's not gonna do it. And I bet that if we got married and he tried to do it, I would stop him.'" Her testimony Tuesday, most solicited during cross-examination by defence lawyer Lawrence Greenspon, expressed confidence in Khawaja's innocence in the London bomb plot. Not once, she said, in all their e-mails and two brief visits he made to her home, did he mention anything about the London plot or any other terrorist activity, But her credibility with the court likely suffered when she said the nearly 3,000 people murdered on 9/11 were unintentional victims - "collateral damage" - of what was intended as an economic assault against the United States and an act she compared to the Allied bombing of Dresden, Germany during the Second World War. The Dresden bomber crews were not terrorists, she said. "Some things happen in war, innocent people get killed. In America you call it collateral damage, I don't see this as much different." Now 27, married and living in Dubai, Khan was then a 23-year-old American living in Pakistan when she entered into an e-mail courtship with Khawaja in 2003. She later admitted to police it was more about trying to escape from her parents' home in Islamabad than love. "He wasn't the brightest crown in the box . . . not the handsomest guy in the world . . . thick mentally. My sister described him as a blowhard, somebody who like to talk a lot, and just listen to the sound of his own voice." Khawaja broke off the engagement a few months later. For nearly an hour, the poised, intelligent and well-spoken woman in a light pink hijab insisted Khawaja had a strong moral compass, had shown no signs of wanting to harm innocent people and had never talked of a plot to bomb public sites around the British capital in 2004. She said they shared a belief in jihad - struggle - that fell far short of terrorism. "I do believe in jihad, but my belief in jihad is vastly different from what many believe it to be. To say that I believe in jihad does not mean I believe in terrorism, that I believe in blowing things up. When I say I support this, I do not support blowing up miscellaneous things in Britain and the U.S."
She said she believes Khawaja felt the same.
| ||||
| Posted by:tipper |
| #1 "You will not meet a young Muslim man in the world who is not angry about something." Honey, ain't that the truth... |
| Posted by: tu3031 2008-07-23 10:26 |