Arab American News : Canadian coed implicated in British terror plot

Canadian coed implicated in British terror plot

By Reuel S. Amdur | The Arab American News | September 8, 2006

Zenab Armand Pisheh, a student at Ottawa's Carleton University, made a written statement which was read on September 4 into the trial in a London court of seven Muslim men charged with plotting terrorist acts. In her statement Pisheh, the daughter of Iranian immigrants, outlined how her search for a husband led to involvement with the plot.

It was an internet chat room romance with Anthony Garcia, one of the seven, that got her involved. According to her story, he phoned from Britain and they discussed marriage. Because they could not agree on whose country they would live in, the marriage never occurred, but contacts continued.

She states that he told her that he and other "brothers" were planning to participate in some kind of training, for which they needed money. Then, it is alleged, she was contacted by a man who called himself Hamza, a man identified by the London prosecutors as Momin Khawaja, formerly a computer programmer for Canada's Department of Defense, now under arrest in Canada where he is charged under Canadian anti-terrorist laws.

Hamza, she says, used her to wire sums of money and to obtain a debit card. It is alleged that the card was used by the British suspects. She eventually had second thoughts about what she was doing.