Ottawa-As part of the case against the Toronto 18 bombers (GM Oct. 19, p.11), the court has released dramatic footage of a ton of fertilizer being detonated by Royal Canadian Mounted Police to show the destructive force that could have been unleashed. “The detonation relates to evidence exhibits that were released by the court Oct. 20 from cases where the accused were found guilty,” Daniel Brien, spokesman for the Public Prosecution Service, told Green Markets. Also released was video footage of two Toronto 18 members receiving a large shipment of fertilizer to construct massive bombs. Two men are shown handling the shipment, which was actually inert material, before police moved in to make the arrests. The two men in the video are Saad Gaya and Saad Khalid, both of whom pleaded guilty to participating in a terror plot with the intention of causing an explosion. The other footage, of the fertilizer bomb explosion staged by RCMP to get an idea of what such a blast would be like, is available online. The bomb was built following the arrests and exploded harmlessly in a grassy field in Alberta. The explosion was filmed from multiple viewpoints. A 2,200-kilogram shipping container was placed next to the bomb to gauge the effect. Such a bomb in downtown Toronto would have “caused catastrophic damage” and the “killing or causing serious injuries” to people in its path, RCMP says, pointing out that the bomb that Timothy McVeigh used in 1995 in Oklahoma City contained one ton of ammonium nitrate and destroyed a U.S. federal building, killing 68 people and injuring 700. One of the Toronto 18 suspects is said to have ordered three tons of ammonium nitrate.
Transparency Across the Fertilizer Value-Chain