Mubin Shaikh

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Mubin Shaikh appearing on Tarek Fatah's Muslim Chronicle

Born on September 29 1975, Mubin Shaikh was one of two informants for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) in the 2006 Toronto Terrorism case, and moved on to become a paid Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) agent source.

He was allegedly recruited by the group to lead the "training camps" which the others attended, and helped the group "quickly move from talk to action, before they were rounded up on conspiracy charges by police".^[1] Critics allege that he "urged them to act, then sat back and counted his cash while the others went to jail".^[2]

Shaikh was anxious for his role "as a Muslim" to be made public, expecting praise rather than condemnation from the local community.^[3]

[edit] Personal life

Shaikh was born at St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, to Indian parents who had emigrated from the United Kingdom where his father, Mohammed Shahied Shaikh, had been studying.

Shaikh attended Grade 7 and 8 at Kane Senior Public School, and joined the Royal Canadian Army Cadets at the age of 13.^[4] He then attended York Memorial Collegiate, where he briefly fought the urge to travel to Chechnya or Bosnia to participate in jihad.^[3]

In May 1995, he volunteered with Tablighi Jamaat^[3] and traveled to Pakistan, India and Britain with the group^[5].

He met his future wife, Joanne Sijka, at York Collegiate and they married in December 1998 after her conversion to Islam. They honeymooned in Mecca and Medina, and have four children.^[6]

A Sunni Muslim, Shaikh is also a member of the Liberal Party of Canada.^[7] He has five tattoos, including one of a Muslim crescent emblazoned on a shield^[3], and a number of self-inflicted cigarette burns^[5]

After helping his sister obtain an Islamic divorce through the mosque in 2003, Shaikh became a volunteer with the Masjid al-Noor's arbitration process.In 2005, he began actively campaigning for recognition of Sharia law as a voluntary method of dispute-resolution in Ontario's Muslim community.^[8]. When public outcry condemned the practice, Shaikh believed that racism and "hate speech" played a large role.^[9]

He continues to argue that Taliban attacks against Canadian troops in Afghanistan are legitimate compared to the bombing of non-combatants.^[10]

He is also a noted activist and public speaker, speaking on a 2004 panel for the Millennium Scholarship Foundation at Parliament Hill in Ottawa and the International Law Student Conference of November 2004. He has appeared as a panel speaker at the University of Toronto^[11] and McGill University.

He has travelled extensively throughout the world, and lived in Syria from 2002 through 2004.

[edit] Public and police role

Upon his return to Canada, he heard of Mohammad Khawaja's arrest. Khawaja and Shaikh knew each other from childhood and so he volunteered to work with CSIS as an informant, while continuing to volunteer at Masjid el-Noor where he had worked for at least ten years.

Shaikh appeared as a witness at an acquaintance's second degree murder trial, where his testimony was disputed. He was also charged, in an unrelated incident, with the assault of his aunt - though the charges were dropped.^[12]

As of January 2007, he claimed that he was owed $300,000 from the RCMP for his role, which was then paid at the start of preliminary hearings for the Young Offenders.^[13] The second informant, a prominent Egyptian-Canadian Muslim who used to work for Air Canada, is an agricultural engineer who helped arrange the phony purchase of ammonium nitrate and negotiated payment of $4 million dollars for his work with the RCMP.^{[14] [15][16]}

He has publicly stated that a number of the arrested should not face charges, including Steven Vikash Chand, whom Shaikh knew through his brother-in-law before the alleged plotting began.^[3]

As of 2008, he admitted that "the case is not as strong as suggested" - but still believed that a number of the accused would be found guilty.^[3]

[edit] Criminal charges

On April 3, 2007 Shaikh was charged with two counts of assault and one count of uttering threats against two 12 year-old girls.^[17][18] According to witnesses, the two Kane Middle School students had either ignored a request to not touch a toddler they had seen^[19] , or had been taunting Shaikh referring to him as "Taliban-boy" and "Osama bin Laden"; one of the girls was either then pushed, or tripped and fell, to the ground. Subsequently, Shaikh was alleged to have "ripped off his top", throwing it to the ground and challenging male students to an altercation - a charge that Shaikh has said is "fabricated and exaggerated". Police say he then drove away "erratically".^[20]

[edit] Drug addiction

Shaikh described himself as "a friggin' pharmacy"^[3] during his high school years, admitting to recreational use of marijuana and LSD,^[2] mushrooms^[5] and cocaine.^[3]

In the weeks prior the 2006 arrests, Shaikh again turned back to cocaine and marijuana^[3], spending "a couple thousand dollars" on the drug. Macleans magazine later reported that he had phoned an ambulance to attend to him after an overdose a couple of times.^[2]

Macleans also reported that the RCMP paid for drug rehabilitation therapy for Shaikh, a charge he denied stating that "the cops didn't pay for anything", and that he overcame the addiction himself after a pilgrimage to Mecca in early 2007.^[3]

The news of his drug habit led attorney Dennis Edney to state that "...it's essential that the Canadian public is made aware of the extent to which these young men were manipulated and directed by CSIS agents, particularly when one of those agents is an admitted drug addict with a powerful personality."^[2]

[edit] References

• Interview with Mubin Shaikh, CBC, July 15, 2006