Ahmad Abou El-Maati

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Ahmad Abou El-Maati (born October 1, 1964) is a suspected Canadian terrorist and brother of suspected Al-Qaeda member Amer el-Maati. In 2001 El-Maati was the subject of a Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigation into what appeared to be a terror plot involving an 18-wheeler truck he was driving.

[edit] Biography

El-Maati was born in Kuwait to Canadian citizens Badr El-Maati, an accountant, auditor and business consultant who originates from Egypt, and Samira Al-Shallash a teacher from Syria.

[edit] Arrest

El-Maati was stopped at the United States-Canadian Border on August 16, 2001, where customs officials found a map of Ottawa listing both government and nuclear research facilities. Ahmad denied knowledge of the map. Police issued a total of seven Search Warrants, without results. Claiming frustration with the ongoing police involvement, Ahmad left to Syria in 2001 to be with his wife whom police had refused to allow entrance into Canada.

He was jailed upon his arrival in Syria, and admitted (later retracted when he claimed the confessions were bought with torture) that he had been a part of a terrorism plot involving two fellow Syrian-Canadians, Maher Arar and Abdullah Almaki, who were then arrested and also reportedly subjected to torture to gain confessions.

On September 6, 2005, a front-page article in the Globe and Mail newspaper revealed that the map in question was of the Tunney's Pasture government complex in the west end of Ottawa, Ontario. The map, an old version, showed government buildings including a Health Canada virus lab as well as a nuclear research facility belonging to Atomic Energy of Canada. However, these offices had been relocated prior to El-Maati's detainment at the border. They have since been demolished and transformed into parking lots.