Khawaja terrorism conviction upheld (CBC)

Mohammed Momin Khawaja is considered leaving a courthouse in Ottawa under RCMP protection on this photo may 3, 2004. (Tom Hanson/Canadian Press)The Court of appeal for Ontario Friday confirmed the conviction of Mohammad Momin Khawaja, who admitted guilty in October 2008 on charges related to terrorism, in a decision that backs definition of the Federal Government to "terrorist activities".

The Court also increased sentence Ottawa man to life in prison in the original sentence is years behind bars.

Khawaja was sentenced the financing costs and facilitate terrorism training in a remote camp in Pakistan and by providing species and other forms of assistance to a group of British extremists. He was also found guilty of both offences for the construction of a remote control device that can trigger bombs.

The conviction of the Khawaja original judge Douglas Rutherford he called "a ready and willing participant" in a terrorist scheme.

The Court has also held against Piratheepan Nadarajah, and Suresh Sriskandarajah in their appeals extradition. The two men are searched in the United States to trial on charges of terrorism for their role assumed by helping the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

Friday against Khawaja, Nadarajah, and Sriskandarajah decisions, the Court upheld definition by the Federal Government of "terrorist activity". This definition includes acts of violence committed for "objective political, religious or ideological, objective or cause".

The three men tried to argue that the definition of violation of their constitutional rights to freedom of conscience and religion and freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression.

However, the Court of appeal stated that none of the three men activity falls within the definition of terrorism is protected by the Charter of rights.

The Court of Appeal ruled that "violent activity, even if it conveys a meaning, is excluded from [constitutional protection] because the violence is destructive of the same values which underlie the right to freedom of expression and that make it right so central to the individual development and operation of a free and democratic society."

Separately, the Court also ruled on three men of the so-called "Toronto 18' - a group that had conspired to detonate bombs in downtown Toronto and on a non-military base specified East of Toronto."

The Court rejected the application of the leader group, Zakaria Amara, which sought to appeal his conviction of life.

Amara pleaded guilty in October 2009 to knowingly participating in a terrorist group and intending to cause an explosion for the benefit of a terrorist group. He was the principal organizer of a plot of three massive bombs on the Toronto stock exchange clearing and other targets large-scale in Ontario.

The Court has also increased the sentences of two other men, Saad Khalid and Saad Gaya, who had admitted to take part in the plot.

Sentence of Khalid has increased by 13 years of the original seven years, after factoring in time served in custody. Gaya sentence was increased to four years and a half years, again after posting time that he served behind bars, before his trial.