Qayyum Jamal

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Abdul Qayyum Jamal is one of 17 people arrested in June 2006 as part of the alleged terrorist plot in Toronto, Canada. He was released on $100,000 bail in November 2006, and the charges of Intent to Cause Explosion were dropped.

The oldest of the suspects, Jamal was 43-years old at the time of his arrest. He was initially accused of helping to coordinate bombing attacks against targets in southern Ontario. An engineering technician receiving severence pay from a manufacturing plant that had shut down, Jamal was working part-time as a school bus-driver in the months prior to his arrest.

Married to Canadian-born Islamic convert Cheryfa Macaulay, Jamal is the father of four sons under the age of 10. He was an active member of directors of the Ar-Rahman mosque in Mississauga where he taught Tafsir and occasionally led the prayers.^[1]

Portrayed as a "spiritual advisor" to the group, one of the young unnamed youths had credited Jamal with "opening his eyes" about Canada's involvement in Afghanistan.

[edit] Relationship with Wajid Khan

When local Member of Parliament Wajid Khan began attending the Ar-Rahman mosque in the summer of 2005^[2], Jamal introduced him to the congregation saying that he had come to bring messages from the government. Jamal countered that he would like to send the government a message of his own - according to Khan he claimed Canadian soldiers were mistreating and raping Muslim women - though Jamal, his family and others have argued that he merely referred to "abusing innocent people" and was not the type of person to refer to rape in front of a religious congregation.^[3] Khan later referred to the altercation, saying he pushed Jamal aside because he was "speaking nonsense" and referred to him as an "idiot" with "piss-poor" command of the English language.^[4] (This was Khan's description of the events in front of the news cameras and reporters, along with statements claiming he stormed out of the masjid in disgust and that others raised objection and roughed up Jamal for his words, but what really happened according to witnesses, is that Khan didn't actually storm out at all, but rather he took the floor and addressed the congregation as was his intent. Neither did anyone reprimand or "rough up" Jamal in response to his introduction, as Khan implied.)

Khan, who was the chairman of the caucus committee on the Canadian Anti-Terrorism Act at the time, had a history of conflict with Jamal's family.^{[citation needed]} Cheryfa criticised Khan for allegedly soliciting political support during Eid prayers, and wrote him an eMail on April 11 2006 complaining about the 32nd Brigade training for Operation Talon for deployment to Afghanistan on the property of her sons' Islamic school in Oakville in full combat gear, including rifles and gas masks.^[5]

Jamal is represented at trial by defence attorney Anser Farooq.

On November 5, 2007, Mr. Qayyum Jamal became the third adult to be granted bail. He had been in custody for over 17 months. The bomb conspiracy charge against him was also dropped.

Mr. Farooq stated that, "we were able to establish, during the preliminary inquiry, that there were a lot of problems with the Crown's case" and evidence elicited during the preliminary inquiry set the stage for Mr. Jamal's release. [2]

[edit] References