TRENTON, Canada
A Canadian jury found two men guilty Friday of a terrorist plot to derail a VIA Rail passenger train that runs between New York City and Toronto.
Chiheb Esseghaier and Raed Jaser were found guilty of conspiracy to commit murder for a terror group. Esseghaier was found guilty on five terror-related charges while Jaser was convicted of three charges. The jury was deadlocked a fourth charge.
The verdict ends a six-week trial and 10 days of jury deliberations.
The two men will appear in court April 10 when they are expected to be sentenced.
The charges stemmed from a plot first hatched in 2012 and the jury heard more than 20 hours of conversations covertly recorded by an undercover FBI agent during which the pair discussed the best way to kill Canadians.
Jaser is a permanent resident of Canada and Esseghaier is a Tunisian nationalist who was studying for a PhD in Montreal when the pair were arrested in April 2013.
Jaser refused to take part in the trial because he wanted to be judged by the words of the Qur’an.
The FBI infiltrator posed as a wealthy Egyptian real estate developer with hardline views who was willing to enter into a conspiracy. The main terror plot was to damage a bridge that would derail the passenger train running from New York to Toronto.
The conversations were recorded in a safe house bugged by police and rented by the FBI agent.
Esseghaier and Jaser were recorded discussing their ideologies, the plot and other attacks that would be carried out in retribution for Canadian military actions in Muslim countries.
“I want this city, this whole country, to burn,” Jaser is heard saying in one conversation.
Both were found guilty on the charges of conspiring to commit murder for the benefit of or in association with a terror group while Esseghaier was also convicted of conspiring to damage transportation property with intent to endanger safety for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with a terrorist group.
The jury was deadlocked on the latter charge against Jaser.
