Zakaria Amara, described as the “mastermind and chief organizer” behind a planned terrorist attack on three Toronto government sites, has been granted full parole after officials cited his “respectful, polite and quiet” conduct.
Amara, now 41, pleaded guilty in 2009 in Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice, three years after developing plans for the extremist operation. The plot was stopped following an extensive police investigation.
He received a nine-year sentence for organizing a terrorist training camp, along with a life sentence and no possibility of parole for 10 years for conspiring to build a bomb. Authorities arrested him as bomb-making materials were being delivered to a warehouse.
Amara challenged his sentence in 2010, but his appeal was rejected. In 2022, however, the Parole Board of Canada approved day parole, allowing him to live in a supervised residential setting under strict conditions.
The Ontario division of the Parole Board of Canada approved Amara for full parole on Friday. According to the written ruling obtained by the Canadian Press, officials found no remaining “signs of holding onto extremist beliefs or radical ideologies.”
The board said Amara had made a successful transition into the community during day parole and pointed to what it called a “positive change, both in attitude and in behavior.”
The ruling acknowledged that he maintained extremist beliefs while incarcerated. Officials recorded a change in his ideology in 2014, after which he was moved to a minimum-security institution.
“During the latter part of your federal custody and for the past four years in the community, you have undertaken a process to distance yourself from extremist ideologies and others who share the same views,” the board stated.
Zakaria Amara, now 41, has received full parole more than two decades after planning one of Canada’s largest terrorist attacks
Amara spent time in a maximum-security prison for his role in the plot before being released on day parole four years ago. He appears in Facebook photographs discovered in 2018
Amara was arrested in 2006 during a major police operation targeting the terrorist network. His former home is pictured above
Under the terms of his release, Amara cannot communicate with anyone involved in criminal activity, including members of the Toronto 18 group, or with people who promote extremist ideology.
He will reside in his own home, attend a mosque, maintain contact with family, take part in “appropriate leisure activities” and hold a full-time job, according to the parole review.
His conditions also require continued counseling and financial oversight, along with limits on his use of telephones and the internet.
While Amara was in prison, a Facebook account bearing his name appeared online and included photographs said to show him behind bars. The account was later removed, Global News reported in 2018.
The Toronto 18 investigation stunned Canadians and became widely regarded as the country’s first major homegrown terrorist plot.
The scale of the operation emerged after a sweeping police raid in the summer of 2006. About 400 officers searched properties across Toronto and Mississauga, arresting suspects that included boys aged 15 and 17.
A Canadian Security Intelligence Service, or CSIS, informant infiltrated the group and later testified that plans to attack the Toronto Stock Exchange Tower, CSIS headquarters and a military base were already highly developed.
The informant said Amara had sought assistance in obtaining ammonium nitrate, a fertilizer used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people. Amara also intended to pack the explosives with metal fragments to increase the number of casualties.
The three sites were meant to be attacked during rush hour. The sentencing judge warned that a successful operation would have produced “catastrophic” consequences and caused many deaths, while prosecutors likened the proposed attack to a “Canadian 9/11.”
Amara pleaded guilty to the attacks in 2009. His sister (right) is pictured above holding his daughter outside Brampton Court
A written review from the parole board said he has worked to rehabilitate and no longer harbors extremist views. He is pictured above in an undated social media photo
Amara was described by the review board as ‘respectful, polite and quiet’
‘Driven by his violent Jihadist convictions, the appellant plotted and schemed for months, schooled himself in the science of bomb-making, recruited underlings to assist him, used tactics designed to reduce the chances of detection, and played a central role in every important decision that was made to further the conspiracy,’ judges wrote in an appeal denial in 2010.
During his sentencing, Amara read aloud a two-page letter to the judge, expressing remorse and accepting his fate.
‘Even though my terrorist plans were divinely aborted I still feel that I have killed since actions are intertwined with intentions. Therefore, until I save the same number of souls that I almost took away, I will remain indebted with a heavy burden that I would hate to meet God with,’ he said.
Amara recalled that during his incarceration, he met an inmate whose brothers worked in the Exchange Towers.
‘Although it could be said that everyone was a potential victim, this title fit him right on. I was shook by the irony of the meeting. I felt pathetic, I felt foolish, I felt sorry,’ he said.
In a letter to his fellow Canadians, Amara said he regretted his actions and vowed to be a better man so that one day his peers ‘will perhaps contemplate accepting me once more into the fold.’
The Daily Mail has reached out to the Parole Board of Canada for comment and the written review.