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London pathologist Khurram Syed Sher has been found not guilty of conspiring to facilitate terrorism.

Ontario Superior Court Justice Charles Hackland told an Ottawa courtroom on Tuesday he had not been persuaded beyond a reasonable doubt that the doctor had joined a plot with two co-conspirators.

Immediately following the verdict, Sher’s supporters let out a gasp. Some began crying.

Sher, 31, was one of three young Muslim men arrested and charged with terrorism-related activity on Aug. 26, 2010, after a massive RCMP investigation dubbed Project Samosa.

Ottawa hospital imaging specialist Misbahuddin Ahmed, 30, one of the co-accused, was found guilty last month of two out of three offences and is awaiting sentencing.

Sean Kilpatrick / Canadian PerssKhurram Syed Sher, second from left, walks with his lawyers outside court in Ottawa on Tuesday.

Following his arrest, it emerged that Montreal-born Sher had once tried out for the Canadian Idol TV show, singing a strained version of Avril Lavigne’s song Complicated and attempting to pull off a Michael Jackson Moonwalk. Speaking in a phoney accent, he told producers he was an immigrant from Pakistan when in fact he is a graduate of McGill University’s medical school.

Sher had not been on the Mounties’ radar until July 20, 2010, when he stopped for dinner at Ahmed’s on his way from Montreal to London where he was about to begin a $365,000-a-year job as a hospital pathologist.

The bulk of the Crown case against Sher was based on his dinner conversation with Ahmed and another man, which was being secretly recorded by sound probes the RCMP had planted in the apartment. The Mounties had been recording the conversations of the two other alleged co-conspirators and tailing them for at least six months.

The Crown rejected the defence explanation that Sher was an innocent caught unwittingly in a net of terrorist intrigue and maintained he was a willing participant who had contributed money to the terrorist cause.

Sher admitted contributing $400 to a fund being gathered by his friend Ahmed but said it was intended for charitable use in Kurdistan — an explanation also given by Ahmed at his trial.

Sher testified that although Ahmed was a longtime friend from Montreal, he knew him only as a sports-loving guy who enjoyed soccer and hockey.

He had no clue that his friend had gone to the dark side

He had not met the second, allegedly radicalized co-conspirator, until the night of the July dinner – a claim that the Crown did not dispute.

But lawyer Michael Edelson told the judge that Ahmed and the third man, whose name is currently protected by a publication ban, had attempted to groom Sher but he hadn’t taken them seriously.

“He had no clue that his friend had gone to the dark side,” he said.

Edelson spent much of the month-long trial pointing to errors in the RCMP’s transcript of the dinner conversation and attacking the lack of qualifications of the translators and transcribers.

Ottawa Citizen

If you’re a unionized police officer with no right to strike, you have to be creative when it comes to making your unhappiness known. In Quebec this summer, the pressure tactic of choice is outrageous pants.

Visitors to Montreal have been scratching their heads at the sight of police officers decked out in brightly coloured camouflage pants and red ball caps as they make traffic stops or offer directions.

They’re letting the steam off

For Montreal natives, the pants protest has become such a regular fixture that they barely notice when the officer handing out a ticket looks like a Rambo wannabe from the waist down.

Most municipalities targeted by the union protest over proposed reforms to municipal pension plans have chosen to look the other way rather than enforce the police dress code spelled out in provincial law. In Montreal, Mayor Denis Coderre has said he would bill the police brotherhood for the cost of removing protest stickers from cruisers and for overtime incurred after officers called in sick en masse one Saturday last month. But he has had nothing to say about the officers’ fashion sense.

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham HughesA Montreal Police cruiser is shown on a street in Montreal, Thursday, August 7, 2014.

“Up to now, public health and safety have not been threatened,” said Michel Grant, an associate professor of labour relations at Université du Québec à Montréal. “It’s not because a police officer is wearing pink pants that they won’t answer 911 calls within the required time. They’re letting the steam off.”

But on Thursday, the city of Sherbrooke broke with the pack and announced it had filed a grievance against the police union, seeking an arbitrator’s ruling that officers must respect their uniform requirements.

“For us, it’s a question of the image of the city and of the police service, considering the nature of their responsibilities. They are supposed to embody authority, law and order,” Serge Paquin, chairman of ’s executive committee, said in an interview. “I think dressing in multi-colour clothes like that does not tend to protect the image.”

The province-wide protest comes at a time when police officers can ill afford to project a clownish image. “In general, police services have more and more trouble having their authority respected by citizens,” he said, “and these tactics are not going to help them in establishing this authority.”

Marie-France Coallier / Postmedia NewsLaval police officer is wearing camo gear on Friday Aug. 8, 2014.

Robin Côté, president of Sherbrooke’s police union, said his members are being unfairly targeted. “We don’t understand why here in Sherbrooke it’s different,” he told Radio-Canada. “In other Quebec municipalities, where all municipal police officers are wearing camouflage pants or jeans, they don’t face any grievances.”

Unconventional trousers have been a protest tactic in Montreal going back to 2003 according to the brotherhood. The city has twice sought rulings from Quebec’s Essential Services Council that the camouflage pants endangered public safety.

At a 2009 hearing, the council heard testimony about police officers responding to calls who were mistaken for criminals because of their pants. One woman who had placed a 911 call about an assault refused to open her door when she saw the camouflage-wearing officers, forcing them to break a window to gain entry. The city paid for the repairs.

At a 2008 hearing, the police chief argued that the camouflage pants conveyed an image of “combat and confrontation” that heightened tensions between the police and minority groups. In both cases, the council ruled that there was no evidence of a danger.

Peter McCabe / Postmedia NewsA man who opposed the military action in Isreal is removed by Montreal Police officers from the inside of the Federation CJA and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs Quebec building in Montreal Monday, July 21, 2014.

Alain Barré, a professor of industrial relations at Université Laval, said cities have tended to tolerate the police protests. Even though officers who flout the uniform rules are clearly in the wrong, he said, suspending them would simply force cities to spend more on overtime for replacements.

He questioned whether the police tactics, which have also included splattering their cruisers in mud, are effective as they lobby against a provincial bill that will require workers and municipalities to equally shoulder the cost of covering a $3.9-billion deficit in municipal pension plans.

“In all public-sector negotiations, in any collective bargaining textbook, you are told it is crucial to have the support of public opinion,” he said. “And I do not believe the pressure tactics being used now by the unions are the right ones to get public support.”

Even so, the police unions’ flair for fashion statements seems to be spreading. La Presse reported Thursday that Montreal’s unionized white-collar workers are stepping up their own pressure tactics. Beginning next week, the union is instructing its workers to show up for work in sweat pants or pyjama bottoms.

Pierre Obendrauf / Postmedia NewsMontreal police officer dressed in camo shorts during Carifiesta parade on Saturday July 5, 2014.

Phil Carpenter / Postmedia NewsA Mascouche police officer wearing military-style camouflage pants walks to a police car in Mascouche, north of Montreal, Friday, August 8, 2014.

National Post

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