Zakaria Amara: Terrorist’s Canadian citizenship revoked

The government has revoked the citizenship of Zakaria Amara, one of the senior members of a Toronto terror group that was exposed in June 2006.

The new law gives the government the power to strip a dual citizen of their Canadian citizenship if he or she commits a serious crime.

Amara was sentenced to life in prison in 2010 with no chance of parole until 2016 for his role in plotting a series of terrorist attacks with the Toronto 18.

Part of the group’s aim was to draw Canadian troops out of Afghanistan and detonate bombs in U-Haul rental trucks in downtown Toronto, according to an agreed upon statement of facts from the case’s Crown lawyer, Ione Jaffe.

The Toronto 18 also harboured plans to attack nuclear power plants, RCMP headquarters and eventually target the Sears Tower in Chicago or the UN headquarters in New York City, according to court records.

Police thwarted the plot – dubbed the “Battle of Toronto” – in a sweeping series of arrests, which included Amara.

Canada has been tightening security in the wake of two terrorist attacks in October 2014, when two people were killed in a series of shootings at the Canadian National War Memorial in Ottawa, and growing concerns about increased recruitment efforts for terrorist organizations such as the Islamic State.

Agencies/Canadajournal