CHENNAI, India–The transplant business is built on the nexus of doctors, government officials, hospital staff, patients, kidney sellers, brokers and lab technicians.

Together, they create the conditions under which kidneys bought from the country’s desperately poor are transplanted into the bodies of wealthier Indians and foreign patients.

A 1994 organs act strictly prohibits commercial peddling of organs. But one loophole is repeatedly exploited. Living, unrelated people can “donate” their kidney “by reason of affection or attachment towards the recipient or for any other special reasons.”

Middlemen, many of whom once sold their own kidney, fabricate tales of relationships between seller and patient to get approval from a government-mandated authorization committee. The network is so extensive that it is relatively simple for a patient with renal failure to get connected with a seller.

Rajesh Gupta, 37, a resident of New Delhi, began receiving dialysis treatment in 1997. As the prosperous owner of a company manufacturing electrical wires and cables, Gupta coughs up $600 monthly to get treatment at Delhi’s Apollo Hospital.

Still, buying a kidney is hardly difficult, he said.

“The process is very simple, actually,” Gupta explained. “The (nursing) attendants of patients in dialysis rooms have all the details. They give you a number and connect you with a donor.”

India’s medical elite have been debating the kidney business for years with two decided camps arguing their positions in medical journals, newspapers and talk shows.

In the pro-kidney selling camp are a bevy of senior nephrologists, surgeons and urologists, who argue that India’s poor benefit economically from selling their kidneys. Yet, almost all kidney sellers interviewed for this article were all in debt again.

“Look, in this country we’ve been trying for cadaver transplants for 15 years,” said Dr. K.C. Reddy, the doctor who removed seller Mary Gurwadan’s kidney, and who is one of the biggest proponents of kidneys for sale.

“The simple fact is that people here want to receive their bodies intact for cremation. They don’t accept removal of organs.”

In the absence of alternatives, a ready pool of willing sellers ought to be embraced, he said.

“We’re talking about saving lives here.” Reddy said.

“Preventing a man from selling the only thing he has of value just isn’t right.”

Indeed, the names of senior doctors and their hospitals repeatedly appear on medical documents obtained by the Star detailing the kidney donations.

Thirty-nine-year-old Anjalai Subramanium, a resident of a North Chennai slum, went under the knife for $800 in 1994. At Chennai’s Willingdon Hospital, she was operated upon by one of Chennai’s best-known doctors.

It’s unlikely that foreign nationals, who fly into India to get a kidney transplant, are ignorant of how kidneys are sourced.

With India quickly growing into a major destination for medical tourism, many come here after being stuck on waiting lists for years.

“When someone’s life is at stake, especially when the solution is just a matter of money, people are willing to compromise on a lot of things, including integrity,” said Amanda Gallagher, an American tour operator who is looking to set up her own medical tour operation, though not for illegal kidney transplants.

Government authorities mandated to prevent the commercial trade in kidneys appear complacent about the practice.

“One of the problems is that the crime status is fairly low in comparison to other crimes,” said Dr. Sunil Shroff who runs the Multi Organ Harvesting Aid Network in Chennai.

“It isn’t a murder, so when there is a sting or a media bust then the authorities do something quickly just to appease the media and temporarily silence things.”

The penalty for selling kidneys is hardly a deterrent. If convicted, a judge can sentence the accused to two to seven years or a fine of between $250 and $500.

Documentary evidence, found in countless files kept by sellers in their slum dwellings across Chennai, reflects that doctors, hospital administrators and government officials take a very casual view of the kidney trade.

SONYA FATAH
TORONTO — Taliban attacks against Canadian and other foreign troops in Afghanistan are a legitimate response to invasion and the Harper government should bring its troops home, according to the Muslim activist who served CSIS and the RCMP as a key informant inside an alleged Toronto terror plot.

Mubin Shaikh was both hailed as a patriot and derided as a betrayer of Islam when he admitted to his role, in a series of media interviews a month after 17 men and boys were arrested in early June on terror-related charges.

Some of his supporters may be surprised to learn Mr. Shaikh’s views on the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“Canada out of Afghanistan, now,” he declared in an interview this week. The Harper government, he said, “is endangering the lives of Canadian soldiers to meet objectives that cannot be attained. You know the last one who conquered Afghanistan? Alexander the Great — 300 BC. All right. You think you can do it? Okay, well. Get ready.”

He was also critical of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. It is the United States, he said, that is the root of the problem there. And of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s characterization of the Israeli military response against Lebanon as “measured,” he said: “Killing Canadian citizens of Lebanese descent is not a measured response.”

If those views appear to contradict his actions, Mr. Shaikh has an explanation: It is a matter of faith and honesty.

He is keen on maintaining his in-dependence from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the RCMP, for whom he has worked for two years.

He said he is still owed money by the authorities.

He is not a pawn, he said, he is merely on the side of truth. He revealed his identity as an informant in the Toronto 17 case because he felt it was important for Muslims and non-Muslims to know that most of them are on the same side, he said.

“I told [officials] to say that the community helped. How come nobody’s saying it? We’re the best partners in the war on terror. Law enforcement is losing credibility among the Muslims. It’s time to gain it back.”

The Mounties did not bite, he said, so he decided to take matters into his own hands.

RCMP officials were not pleased when he went public about his role. He received a call from his minder. “Shaikh, Shaikh — when were you going to tell us?” he recalled being asked.

His life, it turns out, was not at risk. “Because,” he said, “Muslims are not like that. Muslims are not going to attack my wife and kids.”

His wife, Joanne Sijka, 28, a Canadian of Polish descent and a convert to Islam, was his sole confidant. Mr. Shaikh said he discussed every decision with her and did nothing without her support.

“He knows the community and he knows what people are like,” Ms. Sijka said in an interview with The Globe and Mail. “He knows the difference between what people say and what people mean.”

Mr. Shaikh is expected to be a witness in the Crown’s case against the 17 men and boys who were arrested June 3 on allegations of plotting to attack targets in Southern Ontario and Ottawa. (An 18th was arrested in early August.) The allegations have yet to be tested in court.

Since the day of the arrests, Mr. Shaikh said, he has not received a single threatening phone call. That is despite the fact that his address, phone number and father’s mosque were known to the Toronto 17 and their families. But no one called him. And, he said, he received no indirect messages. Partly, that is because he — and his father — have credibility with Muslims in Canada, according to Mr. Shaikh.

“People in the community know the work that I have done and my family has done, behind the scenes, free of charge.”

Last week, Mr. Shaikh took children to see Pirates of the Caribbean, hung out at a Tim Hortons in his neighbourhood and helped with funeral arrangements for community members at the Noor Mosque, where his father is president. Five weeks after he revealed himself, and despite being savaged by young Muslims in blogs and on Internet discussion sites since then, Mr. Shaikh said he is still convinced he did the right thing.

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

SONYA FATAH
TORONTO — Joanne Sijka met Mubin Shaikh at York Memorial Collegiate Institute in west Toronto when she was in Grade 9. He was in Grade 11.

It was her Doc Martens boots that caught his attention, he says. Their circles overlapped: The Polish-born girl and the Canadian-born boy were introduced through friends. But it was not until after high school that they got to know each other.

She has now been married for eight years to Mr. Shaikh, a Muslimactivist who served CSIS and the RCMP as a key informant inside an alleged Toronto terror plot.

She was in a state of constant rebellion during high school, Ms. Sijka, 28, said in an interview with The Globe and Mail yesterday.

In 1995, she worked the concession stand at the Cineplex Odeon Eaton Centre in downtown Toronto.

“Joanne was this very slight, goth chick with long, dyed-black hair and wire-rimmed glasses,” said Dawn Calleja, who worked with Ms. Sijka that summer.

“She wouldn’t take crap from anyone — not her managers, customers or co-workers. She was very clever. . . .

“After her shift, she’d take off her purple bow tie and apron, and put back on her black clothes and huge black boots for the subway ride home.”

Ms. Calleja said Ms. Sijka shaved her head at least once. On that occasion, she got a dragon tattooed on the back of her skull.

Ms. Sijka’s journey toward Islam was not inspired by her husband.

Searching for answers, she first wanted to be a psychologist but found the discipline soulless, she said, and turned toward spirituality and Eastern religion.

One day she went to a bookstore and was drawn to a collection of poems by Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi, a 13th-century Persian poet and Sufi mystic. “I read his poetry,” she said, “and I thought, ‘Okay, look, he’s talking about me.’ ”

Of her wild, partying days, Ms. Sijka said: “Everything was always empty. You know, I’ve had lots of fun. I lived life. But I was always empty. There was always something missing. I can’t say that now. . . . I know my God is always there.”

Mr. Shaikh and Ms. Sijka married in December of 1998, after she converted to Islam.

For their honeymoon they spent the last 10 days of Ramadan in the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina and then went to Egypt, where Mr. Shaikh fondly remembers touring the pyramids on horseback.

Ms. Sijka’s relationship with her parents, which she said was more or less severed when she was a teenager, has changed in recent years.

“After I had my first child, I realized what it was like to be a mom.”

She called her mother and apologized for the earlier years. And, she said, she has never had a better relationship with her parents than she does today.

The couple now have three children, the eldest six years old. A fourth is on the way.

In September of 2005, Ms. Sijka accompanied her husband to support sharia, Islamic law, at a demonstration against the use of religious tribunals to settle family matters. She wore an abaya — a long outer garment that covers the body — with a veil. Only her eyes were visible.

She did not always cover herself, she said. After her marriage to Mr. Shaikh she covered her hair only in the presence of his father. She began covering her head for cultural rather than religious reasons.

She took to wearing the abaya and veil five years ago and said she believes it is an individual choice.

“There is no compulsion in religion.”

Police arrested two men on eight charges in what they called a hate-crime investigation early yesterday morning at an east Toronto mosque. The men were arrested around 1:30 a.m., after worshippers discovered a damaged door and held two men until police arrived.

Several men were offering prayers early in the morning at the Madinah Mosque on Danforth Avenue when one of them was alerted by a loud banging on the door leading to a parking lot. The men rushed outdoors, saw the damaged door and caught up with the men in the parking lot.

The mosque’s caretaker, Ahmed Patel, an elderly, retired man, was sleeping when the incident occurred. The small group of worshippers took care of the situation, he said. Once they had caught the men, Mr. Patel said, the police were called. They arrived five minutes later.

There was a brief confrontation between the suspects and the worshippers, after which one of the suspects allegedly shoved a worshipper, said Detective Antonio Macias of 55 Division.

When the police arrested the men, they were in possession of a small axe or hatchet and a mallet. Police believe the mallet was used to damage the mosque door.

Det. Macias said both men were under the influence of alcohol.

They have been charged with mischief relating to religious property, possession of weapons dangerous to the public, and possession of burglar tools. One is also charged with disguise with intent for allegedly wearing a balaclava, and the other is also charged with assault.

Although there have been worries about backlash attacks ever since the June 2 arrests of 17 Muslim men on terrorism-related charges, there has been only one other incident.

The International Muslims Organization of Toronto mosque in Rexdale was vandalized on the weekend after those arrests. Mosque officials said they were certain the arrests were related to the attack, in which 25 windows and three glass doors were smashed.

There have been no incidents reported to police since then.

“This is an isolated incident and specific to these two gentlemen,” said Det. William Stanley of 55 Division.

Shawn Knott, 18, and Ryan Smith, 19, both of Toronto, were being held in custody overnight at 51 Division and are to appear for a bail hearing this morning.

The weekend’s Caribana parade was followed by parties and more parties that rocked late into the night, but at the family-friendly arts and culture festival yesterday at Olympic Island, the atmosphere was much more laid-back.

The closing event of the three-week-long Caribbean festival featured live calypso, soca and reggae music. And stalls offering the best in Caribbean cuisine featured a range of food from goat curry and jerk chicken to oxtail rice.

Organizers said 2006 was the most successful Caribana in the festival’s 39-year history. But, while visitors and Torontonians gave this years’ parade a thumbs up, others said the Olympic Island festival was disappointing.

There was also some disagreement about attendance figures.

Festival organizers said about 1.2-million people made their way to Lakeshore Boulevard to witness the dazzling array of costumed performers in Saturday’s parade.

“For the parade we had the largest number of spectators ever,” said Joe Halstead, chairman of the new festival organizing committee.

But Elsworth James, public relations director of the Caribbean Cultural Committee, which was prevented from running the festival this year amid a financial controversy, disagreed.

“This year there was a major drop in tourism. Last year we had more than one million [people at the parade]. You had way below that [this year]. I would say half of that.”

The Caribbean Cultural Committee owns the Caribana name and founded the festival, but lost the right to stage this year’s event after the city said it was ineligible for $400,000 in funding for failing to provide a proper audit of the 2005 event. The Toronto Mas Bands Association, responsible for the parade’s colourful bands, co-ordinated the festival this year, led by a city-appointed committee.

Conflicts between the groups has dogged Caribana this past year, but both Mr. Halstead and Mr. James said they wanted an amicable resolution.

Caribana enthusiasts say part of the problem is that there isn’t enough support in the community, in big business and in Canada in general.

Angie Rajkumar drove in from Mississauga for the arts and culture fest on Olympic Island. She was disappointed.

“When I came here last time, they had some really good bands. I heard that they are not getting enough funding to run Caribana. Somebody has to pay for some of the good bands from Trinidad, or wherever, to perform. A lot of the regular people won’t come today because of the performers. I’ve met a lot of first-timers.”

Despite tensions around the event planning, the festival attracted plenty of tourists.

“We are the pre-eminent multicultural city of North America in so far as diversity and cultural expressions are concerned,” said Mr. Halstead. “And for that, people come here. They like the feel of the city.”

Rob Angaw, a New Yorker who came to Toronto for the 10th year with a group of his friends, said he loved the festival. “This is what we come for. We come for all the activities every day.”

Festival organizers said they were pleased with the performance of the Toronto Police Service, which had more officers at events this year.

“They are not there as enforcers, they are there are community police people ensuring that people are safe,” Mr. Halstead said.

“We’ve had absolutely no serious concerns,” said Staff Sergeant Frank Besenthal, who spent the weekend attending Caribana events in an official capacity. “No injuries, no fights, no arguments.”

The Globe and Mail, Thursday, August 3, 2006

SONYA FATAH
Tarek Fatah, the outspoken, controversial communications director of the Muslim Canadian Congress, has resigned, citing concerns for his safety and that of his family.

Mr. Fatah said he will also resign from the MCC’s board, severing all official ties with the organization he helped found.

“It’s not just for me. It’s for my wife and my daughters,” he said in an interview.

“Part of it is also to get out of the limelight.”

Mr. Fatah’s socially liberal views have always been controversial within the Muslim community, and in the past month he has been the subject of an e-mail campaign aimed at the Canadian news media.

In his resignation letter to the board, Mr. Fatah wrote that he wanted to step down because of “an increasing heavy load of work.” He said he will stay on in his current capacity until the MCC finds a replacement.

Along with his resignation, Mr. Fatah has filed a report with Toronto Police detailing what he says are a number of threats he has received since 2003. A police investigation is under way.

“This has been a particularly stressful three months and I have tried to do my best and times I have succeeded and at other times messed up,” Mr. Fatah wrote in his resignation letter.

Mr. Fatah has always carried a high profile, both with the Muslim Canadian Congress — known for its liberal interpretations of Islam, including its support of homosexuality — and as the host of Muslim Chronicle, a CTS TV current-affairs show that focuses on the
Muslim community.

But in recent months, he said, he has been coming under increasing fire. There was the e-mail campaign and he is more worried than ever about threats after the arrests of 17 terrorism suspects in Toronto in early June.

Mr. Fatah’s unpopularity among conservative segments of the Muslim community is not surprising. He is a strong advocate of gay rights for Muslims and the inclusion of secular voices in the Muslim community. He publicly and vehemently opposed the adoption of
sharia law in Canada.

Recently, many Muslims were angered by his very vocal campaign against British imam Sheik Riyadh ul Haq, who ultimately was refused a visa to attend a conference in Toronto. Mr. Haq’s address was transmitted live by satellite instead.

Many Muslims have also accused Mr. Fatah of hogging the media spotlight.

He is frequently a subject of animated discussions on blogs and Internet chat forums, and early last month, a student group based in Montreal began bombarding five news outlets — The Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, The Toronto Sun, CBC and CTV — with e-mails insisting that he does not represent the Muslim community and should not be recognized as a legitimate voice.

Mr. Fatah was quick to respond to accusations about his views.

“My position is that same-sex marriage is a human right and whether someone believes it is valid from a religious perspective is not the question. Most Muslims do not believe homosexuality is permitted but that is not the question,” he said.

Mr. Fatah has fiercely advocated for a separation of church and state, although he said he has no issue with sharia arbitration as long as it is not part of the state legal system.

Still, Mr. Fatah is controversial even in liberal circles.

“He has alienated a lot of people,” said Tariq Amin-Khan, assistant professor of politics and public administration at Ryerson University in Toronto.

Dr. Amin-Khan said Mr. Fatah’s understanding of current events is limited by his dismissal of the imperialist global agenda. “I don’t agree with many of the policies of the state, with right-wing agendas, white supremacist or mullah parties. But I find [Mr. Fatah's views] appalling. I find some of the stuff he says very, very disturbing.”

On June 30, Mr. Fatah was identified by the Canadian Islamic Congress as one of four people who are anti-Islam in an article in the CIC’s weekly Friday Magazine, which is sent to e-mail subscribers. The article, “Smearing Islam and Bashing Muslims, Who and Why,” was penned by Mohamed Elmasry, the CIC’s director and an adjunct professor in the department of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Waterloo.

The list, which also included Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente, was led by Mr. Fatah, whom Dr. Elmasry wrote “is well known in Canada for smearing Islam and bashing Muslims.”

Dr. Elmasry levelled similar accusations against the Muslim Canadian Congress last October.

Mr. Fatah said he is concerned because he understands the implication of statements such as “anti-Islam” and “smearing Islam.”

He said they are akin to fatwas, pronouncing blasphemy, a crime that under sharia law is punishable by death.

“Anyone can issue a fatwa,” Mr. Fatah said. ” And anyone can issue a counter-fatwa. There is no clergy that oversees the process. This is a complete hijacking of the system, and everyone is complicit.”

Wahida Valiante, vice-chair and national vice-president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, said there are “different versions and different ideologies” when asked whether the assertion amounted
to a fatwa.

“We’re not into fatwas,” she said. “We are not a religious body. We are looking into issues. If someone is misrepresenting facts, we simply address that.”

Mrs. Valiante said she had not read the article and could not refer to it directly. But she said that through her intimate exposure to the Muslim community, she felt confident that many people believe Mr. Fatah is smearing and misrepresenting Islam.

“Tarek Fatah’s views are diametrically opposed to most Muslims. There is a tremendous amount of discussion in the community. His point of view contradicts the fundamentals of Islam,” she said, refusing to elaborate on what she meant.

“The nature of the work we do implicitly entails that there will be people who don’t like what we do,” said El-Farouk Khaki, secretary-general of the Muslim Canadian Congress. The articulated hostility is par for the course for those who feel threatened by them, he said.

Mr. Khaki warned that police have to be sensitive to the reality that people who challenge established views so overtly are often in danger of being attacked.

Mr. Fatah has been attacked both physically and verbally, he said — at an Islamic conference at the former SkyDome in 2003, dozens of young Muslim men mobbed him while a cleric shouted out that he had insulted the Prophet Mohammed’s name. In 2006, he said, was accosted on Yonge Street by a man who accused him of being an apostate. His car windows were smashed.

He also wrote a letter to the RCMP about the article sent by e-mail by the Canadian Islamic Congress.

“This is as close as one can gets to issuing a death threat, as it places me as an apostate and blasphemer,” he wrote.

Mr. Fatah says it is this concern for his safety that has pushed him to hand in his resignation. He said he is planning to write a book.

By SONYA FATAH

Members of Toronto’s diverse Muslim community reacted angrily to the identification of Mubin Shaikh as an RCMP and CSIS agent.

“This is like the pot calling the kettle black,” said Tarek Fatah, communications director for the Canadian Muslim Congress.

“He was the embodiment of extremism in the city. He was the exponent of sharia law in the city.”

Indeed, Mr. Sheikh has been a chief proponent of sharia law, lobbying for using the Islamic legal code at the Al-Noor Mosque, where he ran the Al-Noor Arbitration Centre, the only such centre in Canada.

“He was supporting some of the most extremist groups in Canada. Now, he’s throwing up modern and Canadian values.

“It brings into question whether he’s trying to salvage his own problems with the authorities.”

Mr. Fatah says that Mr. Shaikh’s divisive views on the Muslim community hardly represent Canadian values.

A different but equally damning view was expressed by Aly Hindy, the controversial imam of the Salahuddin Islamic Centre in Scarborough, attended by some of the 17 arrested youth.

Imam Hindy sees CSIS as a vehicle for radicalizing young people by infiltrating youth Muslim communities.

“The government and the people keep saying that we should not make our young people radical. CSIS is the one radicalizing the youth. I call him CSIS Shaikh.”

Mr. Hindy learned about Mr. Shaikh’s involvement as an agent in the terror case through members of the community, including parents of some of the accused.

An angry Mr. Hindy retaliated by saying that Mubin Shaikh was planted to radicalize young people.

“He was someone more knowledgeable about Islam. He has knowledge in Arabic. He has knowledge of the sharia. I saw this.

“We once had an open house in Mississauga. He talked to the men. He brought a lot of books. He had a lot of knowledge.”

Mr. Hindy says the young men were impressed by Mr. Shaikh.

When news of Mr. Shaikh’s involvement reached him, he had flashbacks of moments when he saw Mr. Shaikh making an effort with youth at his mosque.

“I remember I was standing outside Salahuddin. And he was standing there, playing with a lot of young people. Some of those guys got arrested.”

He recalls Mr. Shaikh attending high-level imam meetings, which he now believes were meant to source information.

Mr. Hindy alleges that Mr. Shaikh once told Salahuddin community members that the reason he didn’t attend the mosque there was out of fear of CSIS.

But then, Mr. Hindy says, Mr. Shaikh started coming to the mosque.

“This is not an informer,” he says angrily. “An informer is a good citizen who finds information and tells the law something is about to happen. This is dirty.”

The Globe and Mail, July 14, 2006

SONYA FATAH and GREG MCARTHUR AND SCOTT ROBERTS

TORONTO — One night in October, a group of young Muslims gathered at a Toronto banquet hall and tried to raise money for two men who had recently been convicted of gun smuggling and imprisoned.

The event was supposed to help their cause — but it may end up being remembered as the night that Canada’s first home-grown Islamist terror cell came crashing down.

Among the men and women gathered in the room was an outsider named Mubin Shaikh, 30. He didn’t attend the same Mississauga or Scarborough mosques as the supporters in the hall, and he didn’t know many of the people in the room.

But he had instructions: Get to know Fahim Ahmad, the young man believed by authorities to be behind the gun-smuggling operation and an emerging terrorist cell.

The outsider approached Mr. Ahmad and told him about his training as a six-year member of the Royal Canadian Army Cadets. He told him about his survival skills and weapons training. He also told Mr. Ahmad that he believed firmly in jihad.

By the end of the evening, Mr. Shaikh was in.

That was 10 months ago, and since then, in media reports around the world, Mr. Ahmad has been identified as the ringleader of the so-called “Toronto 17,” the group of men and teenagers tied into an alleged plot to blow up three targets in Southern Ontario and storm Parliament Hill.

This is the story of the 18th man, the civilian mole and devout Muslim paid by CSIS and the RCMP to infiltrate Mr. Ahmad’s circle and thwart an alleged plot to blow up those targets. Over a series of discussions with The Globe and Mail, Mr. Shaikh detailed his motives for bringing down the alleged terrorist cell.

Above all, violence in Canada in the name of Islam cannot be tolerated, said Mr. Shaikh, who says he has learned to juggle his fierce commitment to both Islam and the secular values of Canadian society.

On one hand, he is an official at his west-end mosque, supports the jihads in Afghanistan and Iraq and was one of the most public supporters of the failed bid to introduce sharia law in Ontario, occasionally commenting on the debate on television.

On the other, he is also a onetime member of the York South-Weston Liberal Riding Association, whose family keeps a sticker of the Canadian flag on their mailbox.

“As a practising Muslim, the interests of the Muslim community are paramount,” Mr. Shaikh said.

“And as a Canadian, the safety and security of my fellow citizens is also primary.”

Mr. Shaikh started his new job more than two years ago when his Ottawa friend, 27-year-old Momin Khawaja, was arrested by the RCMP and accused of taking part in a foiled United Kingdom bomb plot.

Mr. Shaikh said he contacted the authorities because he thought he might be able to help in their investigation, and before long, he was put through the most rigorous of job interviews.

There was a polygraph test and some strange fact-gathering assignments. He also said he sought permission from his imam to join ranks with Canada’s spy service — permission that was granted.

As far as he could tell, he was one of the few bearded and brown-skinned employees of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, but he says he never picked up any anti-Islamist sentiment. The agents’ only concern was the welfare of Canada, he said.

He soon became accustomed to the routine of being an agent: wearing a wire and flying to remote locations. One mission to Yemen to infiltrate a training camp, he said, ended unsuccessfully when authorities there didn’t let him enter the country.

Instead, Mr. Shaikh spent five days detained at the airport. Eventually, CSIS brought him back home. He financed his work by going to secret locations and receiving cash handoffs.

Those payments increased when he inserted himself into Mr. Ahmad’s circle — and so did the stakes.

Only two months after the banquet hall meeting, Mr. Shaikh joined Mr. Ahmad and some other young men on a 160-kilometre road trip to a snow-covered forest in Ramara Township, population 15,000.

For two weeks over the Christmas holidays, young men in military fatigues wandered around in the wilderness firing paintball guns and real guns and annoying the neighbours.

One of those neighbours was a grey-haired recluse who doesn’t own a phone. He was so annoyed that he left his trailer and travelled down the dirt road where the campers had parked their cars.

He wrote down the licence plate numbers of the four cars blocking his road and filed the information with the rest of the scattered documents he keeps in his Dodge minivan.

Six months later, a few days after the campers were arrested and accused of being terrorists, the hermit handed the licence plate numbers to a Globe reporter who went to see the training camp for himself.

Almost all of the licence plates made sense. Three of them were registered to the family members of Zakaria Amara, Ahmad Ghany and Qayyum Abdul Jamal — all of whom have been taken into custody on the terrorism charges.

But there was a fourth licence plate, attached to a blue minivan, that didn’t fit.

It was registered to Mr. Shaikh’s younger brother, Abu Shaikh.

Even with his extensive training on how to be clandestine, Mubin Shaikh does not blend in well at Toronto’s busiest intersection, the corner of Front and Bay Streets.

His long beard, which ends just below his pectoral muscles, and his kurta, a flowing grey robe, are in stark contrast with the commuters in collared shirts who whiz by on their way to the GO Train.

He stands on the corner describing his “surreal” predicament to a Globe reporter. Since the beginning of the investigation, he’s had to repeatedly prove his loyalty to both his employer and his emir, Mr. Ahmad.

One day during the investigation, he was driving Mr. Ahmad somewhere while being followed by undercover police officers.

When Mr. Ahmad noted that they were being tailed, the agent weaved through lanes of traffic, trying to shake off the people who pay his salary, he said.

He is also, he said, fearful of any reprisals that may stem from his co-operation in the case. Many people in the Muslim community suspect he was involved and the agent worries that a tiny fraction of them might take issue with him.

But he’s prepared to be scrutinized by all of his Canadian Muslim brothers and the defence lawyers of the accused, who will no doubt vigorously examine him about the $77,000 he says he’s earned, and the $300,000 he’s says he’s owed.

He acknowledged that his past isn’t completely unblemished, and that he didn’t completely embrace Islam until he was a young man after making trips to India, Pakistan and the Middle East.

He is now a married father, and his wife, a Polish convert to Islam, is expecting another child.

Some parts of his past, and his family’s past, will surely be revealed in court if the cases make it to trial.

Last year, his father was charged with sexual assault after a woman said she had been fondled by an Islamic chaplain who was supposed to be counselling her through a divorce. The outcome of that case is unknown to The Globe.

When asked about the accusation against his father, whose name is Mohammad Shahied Shaikh, Mr. Shaikh said he didn’t want to discuss it.

The RCMP mole was also once a witness at a friend’s second-degree murder trial and his testimony was the subject of an appeal.

Mr. Shaikh was also once accused of assaulting his aunt and was charged criminally, Mr. Shaikh told The Globe. Those charges were dropped, Mr. Shaikh said, adding that his credibility will remain intact with people who truly know him.

“Let the courts do their thing, and the evidence will come out there,” he said.

SONYA FATAH
Special to The Globe and Mail

A Newmarket man who was detained for five weeks as a threat to Canada’s security — and then released this week when federal lawyers dropped the allegation — accused prison and security officials yesterday of abusing and harassing him during his time at the Toronto West Detention Centre.

Raja Ghulam Murtaza spoke at a news conference organized by his lawyer.

Mr. Murtaza said he was arrested while he was leaving his house for dinner on the evening of March 16. He was not given a reason for his detention, he said.

“They asked me if I had changed my name from Raja Ghulam Mustafa to Raja Ghulam Murtaza. I said, ‘Yes.’ But they didn’t ask me why I changed my name.”

While in detention, Mr. Murtaza said, he was the victim of repeated verbal abuse, threats and profanity.

During his first interrogation, Mr. Murtaza said, he was asked three questions.

His interrogator asked him where he was from. Pakistan, Mr. Murtaza said he responded.

“Then he asked me, ‘Are you from Pakistan?’ I said yes. ‘Then you are a terrorist,’ he told me.”

Tarek Fatah, communications director of the Canadian Muslim Congress, also spoke at the news conference.

“People should be addressed by their names, not by four letter words,” Mr. Fatah said.

“Everyone in the Pakistani community feels terrorized.”

Mr. Murtaza said his run-in with immigration officials has left him a marked man.

“They put it in the news that I am a terrorist. Now I don’t have a job because no one wants to hire me,” he said. Mr. Murtaza was employed as taxi driver in Newmarket at the time of his arrest.

Asked whether he was a terrorist, he responded, “Not at all.”

Mr. Murtaza said he is from Toba Tek Singh, a town in the Pakistani province of Punjab, which is a major recruitment centre for the Pakistani army. His four brothers are in the Pakistani army, and he served seven years, rising to the rank of captain, he said.

He said that he angered Pakistani officials by voicing his criticism of corruption and bribery within the armed forces.

Mr. Murtaza said he escaped to the United States, where his application for refugee status was rejected.

Afterward, he crossed the border into Canada and changed his name to Murtaza from Mustafa to avoid trouble.

“I do not want to go back to Pakistan,” said Mr. Murtaza, adding that he fears deportation and any subsequent repercussions for desertion.

Mr. Murtaza, along with his girlfriend, Rose, and others, have suggested that Mr. Murtaza’s ex-wife, Fatima, called immigration officials and reported that he was a terrorist.

The couple split up some time ago; Mr. Murtaza said they are divorced under Islamic law.

Their son, Bilal, 6, lives with his mother in Texas. Their daughter, Iqra, 7, lives with her paternal grandparents in Toba Tek Singh.