Momin Khawaja used an Ottawa-area woman to funnel money to colleagues in Britain as part of an alleged terrorist financing scheme, the former software designer's trial has heard.
Zenab Armandpisheh testified Friday that she met Khawaja in the fall of 2002 -- though he didn't tell her his real name at first -- and cut off contact with him in mid-2003 after becoming suspicious about his activities.
"I stopped talking to him because I thought that he was dishonest," she said. "I didn't know what he was doing and I didn't want to be part of what he was doing."
Armandpisheh was an 18-year-old junior college student when Khawaja sent her an e-mail in the fall of 2002, shortly after she ended an Internet chat room relationship with another man she knew as Abdul Rahman Adam.
She never found out his real name, but subsequent investigation has shown him to be Anthony Garcia, one of five men convicted by a British jury last year of plotting to bomb targets in and around London.
Evidence compiled by federal prosecutors shows that Armandpisheh was asked by Khawaja to wire about $5,000 to Britain through an Ottawa Western Union office.
Khawaja, who originally told her his name was Ibn Hamza, also told her to open a bank account and send the accompanying debit card to a woman in Britain.
The card eventually ended up in the possession of Omar Khyam, the since-convicted ringleader of the London bomb plot. Records produced Friday showed at least $2,000 flowed through the account, but it wasn't clear if there may have been more.
Armandpisheh also said Khawaja handed her a number of DVDs depicting jihadi activities, with a suggestion that she "play them for others."
The testimony came as prosecutors neared the end of their case against Khawaja. The final Crown witness, set to testify next week by video link, is expected to be Zeba Khan, a Pakistani-born former fiance of Khawaja who now lives in Dubai.
Email traffic already quoted in court indicates that, before their engagement was called off in late 2003, Khawaja offered a candid description of his political views to his intended bride.
They included a devotion to helping "oppressed brothers" in other countries and a commitment to jihad -- or "the j" as he often called it.
"You're seeking to marry a guy who is in the j," he wrote on one occasion. "He supports the j financially and physically . . . . The j is more important to him than anything."
If he had the money, he wrote in another message, he would raise a "grand army of mujahedeen" and head for Afghanistan, then for Iraq. The next goal after that would be to bring down any rulers of Muslim countries who use titles like General or President.
"Basically, we'd take care of all the bad guys in one shot."
Khawaja also offered his views, in yet another email to Khan, about suicide bombings in Israel and the 9-11 attack on the World Trade Centre.
But defence lawyer Lawrence Greenspon objected to making those particular comments part of the record at the trial, claiming they were irrelevant and prejudicial.
He appealed to Justice Douglas Rutherford, who is hearing the case without a jury, to disregard them in assessing the evidence against his client.
"This is precisely the type of evidence that should not be permitted in this, or for that matter any other, trial," said Greenspon.
The Crown's aim, he said is to suggest that if Khawaja supported attacks in Israel and New York, he must also be the kind of person who would back a bomb plot in London.
That's a "gargantuan leap" of logic that would violate the concept of freedom of thought enshrined in the Charter of Rights, said Greenspon.
Crown attorney David McKercher replied that he's merely trying to set Khawaja's activities in context.
There were similar arguments Friday about whether the jihadi videos Khawaja handed to Armandpisheh should be played in court. Rutherford is to rule on both the email and video disputes next week.
Greenspon has repeatedly insisted that, despite a mass of evidence presented so far, the Crown has not proved the legal elements necessary to obtain a conviction.
He has argued, among other things, that although Khawaja believed in jihad his efforts were directed against western forces in Afghanistan, not at bombing sites in Britain.
Speaking outside the courtroom Friday, Greenspon said he's thinking of asking for charges to be dismissed on grounds that the prosecutors have failed to prove their case.
The tactic, technically known as a motion for non-suit, is a common one for defence lawyers but rarely succeeds. Nevertheless, said Greenspon, "we're considering it once the Crown has finished their case."
