David B. Harris writes:
Khawaja represents a growing movement of Canadian dead-end Islamic extremists whose release into society could have repercussions of a sort generally unknown in more conventional criminal contexts.”
(…)
Meanwhile, if the legal system is unprepared for what Khawaja represents, we must ask if this detention system is truly up to the task. Consider Justice Douglas Rutherford’s reference to the pitch on behalf of Khawaja by the director of the Islamic Centre of Ottawa, a man reported to have known the terrorist for 11 years.
According to the sentencing report cited by Rutherford, there is the inevitable pre-sentence blather about how the cleric’s spiritual charge “has become a new person,” and that “he is talking much more and communicates effectively with others” — disturbing rather than encouraging, given the content of Khawaja’s past pathologically hateful conspiratorial “talk.”
