Categories: Need to know

Friends of Montreal terror suspect baffled by arrest

They say Khurram Sher is a peaceful, likeable, funny guy

by macleans.ca on Friday, August 27, 2010 1:30pm - 0 Comments

Since Khurram Sher, 28, was charged in an Ottawa court with a single count of conspiracy to facilitate a terrorist offence, his friends can’t make sense of the crime. The McGill-trained physician was known as a community pillar, loving husband and father of three small children. Former coworkers from McGill’s Health Centre say he had a great sense of humour, and that he was peaceful and likeable, and known for singing Avril Lavigne’s ‘Complicated’ on Canadian Idol auditions in June 2008. “He’s a great guy, there is absolutely no way he is involved in this,” said one colleague at the Montreal General Hospital who believes this is a case of mistaken identity. He added: “Anyone who knows him would say he couldn’t be involved in this.”

Montreal Gazette

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  • Ariadne

    I hope this is just a mistaken identity, otherwise this is so unthinkable. A doctor , who is suppose to protect life, is now a proponent for mass murder. And with him as a great guy and a pillar of the community, that is just beyond comprehension. Who is next, an Imam?

  • Jack, Hamilton

    I hear that the Canadian Police Chiefs' Association is so concerned about our safety and security that they're calling for a moratorium on any new immigration to Canada. They realize that we already have lots of radical cells operating in Canada and we'll never sort this situation out if there are hundreds and thousands of new people coming in every year mostly from terrorist producing nations.
    Just kidding!! That would involve actual thought, and the chieftains wouldn't want to offend the left-wing mayors they usually report to and they don't want to offend the immigration lobby.

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/Ottawa_Centrist Ottawa_Centrist

      derp

    • Adam

      For the CACP, or any other governmental lobby to say something like THAT would be even more unbelievable than me saying I has a threesome with Scarlett Johansson and Ryan Reynolds…

      The point of mass immigration has always been to keep the real estate market growing. Multiculturalism, diversity and affirmative action policies and the like are just means to the end of bringing more warm bodies to Canada, in order to keep the real estate bubble inflated. Forget immigration lawyers–banks, Real Estate Trusts, developers and construction companies have deep pockets and conections, and are the ones who pushed Trudeau and Mulroney to establish the quarter million annual 'target' for immigration. With this torrent of people, there is NO WAY you can screen for criminality, or radicalism.

    • Gareth Hitchings

      It wasn't so long ago Jack when the UK and Ireland were "terrorist producing nations", but I'm guessing you wouldn't have called to keep the protestants and catholics out of Canada. Using the threat of terrorism to block all muslim immigration is just racism hiding behind national security. The vast vast majority of muslims in this country are peaceable lovely people who come here looking to build a better future for themselves and their children, just like the vast majority of irish and british immigrants before them. Just because a small minority of their respective societies decided to start blowing stuff up for some insane religious cause doesn't mean Canada should slam its door.

      • Ceeger

        Gareth Hitchings is one of radical Islam's useful idiots.
        Society must watch out for apologists like this in the era of homegrown terrorism.

        • Gareth Hitchings

          Call me an idiot while completely ignoring the valid points I raised. So typical of the right. So pathetic.

  • citizen_CA

    “He’s a great guy, there is absolutely no way he is involved in this,” said one colleague at the Montreal General Hospital who believes this is a case of mistaken identity. He added: “Anyone who knows him would say he couldn’t be involved in this.”

    How gullible can this person be? There is something called role-playing, and yes, believe it or not, even terrorists are capable of doing it. Lets base things on evidence rather than how this guy wanted others to perceive him.

  • Tom

    If this plot had succeeded, some Canadians would still have found a way to blame the US for it.

    • wictorwictor

      Turns out that bombing people, destroying their hospitals and infrastructure, murdering their families and torturing their sons and fathers makes them mad at you. Makes their families want to get back at you. Would you react any other way? Everything the americans have done in the middle east since 2001 has made us less safe, and we are among the most gleeful participants. A decade of failure and yet North Americans are absolutely hellbent on blaming others for the consequences of their actions. When will we learn?

      • madeyoulook

        Everything the americans have done in the middle east since 2001 has made us less safe

        I wonder… anything important happen in 2001? Where's the shoebox with my old day-planners…

        • wictorwictor

          The actions of a few criminals do not justify the collective punishment of millions of innocent people. All this does is make us seem like the evildoer in their eyes. Let them suffer under fundamentalist rule and they will eventually come around; demolish their way of life and commit despicable acts against them and they will rally around their exploiters. Violence begets more violence every time.

          • wictorwictor

            As for this particular suspect, hopefully the police did their homework this time and he will not be found unguilty. I know they're doing their best and I appreciate it. But when they arrest the wrong guy, let a guilty party slip through because of sloppy police work, they are doing no-on a favour.

      • wictorwictor

        I hear George W Bush is a nice guy in person too

      • Philanthropist

        You're talking about al-Qaeda, you must be confused. The Americans toppled the Saddam Hussein family dictatorship and have been battling al-Qaeda and Taliban since 2001. Hussein and the Islamists bomb, destroy, torture and murder, not the Americans, or British, or Canadians. It might be fun in a juvenile rebellion way to slam the Americans, but the reality is that the people who do would run to the Americans if they were in trouble anywhere in the world – in the same way that Muslims seeking asylum run to Israel! How interesting is that eh! Grow up.

        • wictorwictor

          "Hussein and the Islamists"
          listen to yourself. Could you possibly be more indoctrinated

        • wictorwictor

          Iraqi citydwellers haven't had clean running water or reliable electricity since we "liberated" them… birth defects and juvenile cancers skyrocketed in Falluja…. hospitals and schools reduced to rubble and never rebuilt… in the aftermath of the invasion, countless treasures and historical artifacts stolen and never recovered… but as far as you're concerned they've never been better off. Hey, their way of life may have been set back 50 years, but at least they get to choose between corrupt, parochial US-backed puppet governments every few years! Mission accomplished!

          Give your head a shake.

          • O'Neill

            So your a Saddam Hussein and Taliban fan.Very Interesting.

          • s_c_f

            Actually, just the opposite. Don't let the facts get in the way of your spin!

            Iraqi citizens are wealthier than ever before, it you measure by their total economic output, which includes running water, electricity and infrastructure.

            Under Saddam, Iraqi GDP per capita went from $1,563 in 1979 to $2,456 in 2002, increasing just 57% in 23 years, or 1.98% per year.
            Even before UN sanctions in 1990, Iraqi GDP per capita went from $1,563 in 1979 to $1,800 in 1989, increasing just 15% in 10 years, 1.41% per year.

            Since that time, Iraqi GDP per capita went from $2,456 in 2002 to $2,915 in 2009, increasing 18% in 7 years, or 2.39% per year.
            In fact, GDP per capita dropped to $1,598 in 2003 due to the war, and has grown since. Measuring from then to $2,915 in 2009, that is growth of 82%, or 10.5% per year.

            GDP per capita today is higher than it ever was under Saddam Hussein or even throughout the entire history of Iraq.

            In other words, Iraqis are now the wealthiest they have ever been. Growth in economic output, even during the Iraqi war, was an average of 2.39% from 2002 to 2009, which easily exceeds the 1.98% growth during Hussein's 23 years in power, or the 1.41% prior to UN sanctions in the first 10 years under Saddam Hussein.

            In terms of economic output and quality of life, Iraqis have never been better off than now.

          • s_c_f

            Also, the "countless treasures and historical artifacts stolen" never actually happened, that was a hoax.

      • Ariadne

        Are you referring to what Al Queda and Taliban are doing all over the world? Killing innocent people in Somalia, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, India, Indonesia, or wherever their butts happen to be? We have a term for these people "Serial Killers/Murderers" just like Pickton, the difference is that the others are pretensious enough to use religion as their convenient excuse, but at the bottom of it, they all derive joy from extinguishing lives.

  • Marie

    wictorwictor seems like he's a bit touchy on the whole Iraqi War – perhaps he's trolling this forum – well in my opinion it seems that the reason Iraq is in such a terrible state stems from hundreds of years of dictatorship and keeping its own people uneducated and in a state of poverty, especially the opression of its womenfolk.

    • Eddie

      i agree. the same also happens when you are beaten on the head with the "word of the Lord" continuously ALL the time. you are not allowed to read or learn anything else. so it is not just subjugating women only, but everyone they can get their hands on!!

    • Holmz

      Touchy or not…The Iraq war was illegitimate… and George Bush should be perceived the same way those mass murders in question. Some people are so naive about the world it is almost reprehensible. I mean no one likes dictatorship and everyone wanted Saddam gone including the Iraqi people, which incidentally make for great doctors, artists and scholars, despite the oppression they experienced. Pulling words out of your dog's behind isn't going to make you souond more intellectual, on the contrary, it is going to make sound like an uninformed and perpetually oblivious, close-minded idiot I must say. I see read and educate yourself before jumping to baseless conclusions. War is reprehensible unless it's in self-defense. Mass murder and terrorism are reprehnsible and downright immoral. So let's give the guy his Canadain right to be deemd innocent until proven guilty and let's bond as Canadians as opposed to dividing and creating holes in our incredibly beaultiful cultural diversity.

  • Western Newf!

    When the Muslim terrorists finally do become more active in this country, the ones who are already here, and violence becomes a daily event, I will not just blame them and the violent religion they follow, I will also blame all you leftist! Your unwillingness to see the immigration of Muslims into this country as a threat to your own way of life is myopic and you will pay for it in the long run, but so will those of us who have resisted this immigration pattern. The fact is, Islam was borne in violence, it advances by violence and deception, and once it is in the majority it oppresses unmercifully. You lefties will lose your hard won gay rights, your hard won abortion rights, and as for you lefty women and your right to choose, you can forget about it. You will not even be a person under Islam. All because you lefties fail to see the massive flaws in your own ideology of open-ended "tolerance". This principle will always be limited by the need to not tolerate certain cultural practices and the ideologies that drive them. Tolerance has its limits!

    • Eddie

      i could not have sais it better myself!! WOW!!

    • Canuckguy

      NEWF, the gutless cowardly spineless PC barking dog leftists are the apologists for Muslim fundamentalism and what you say is right on target. And those who think only a tiny minority of Muslims are intolerant backward radicals, they are so wrong. It's time to no longer tolerate their kind of intolerance.

      • guy_caballero

        Because this guy appeared so normal and funny and goofy, yet is (allegedly) a terrorist, I suddenly question my tolerance of Islamics. I believed that most Muslims were not violent. Now I see that they can act completely "Western" if they want to blend in, yet persist with an underlying hatred. If they are capable of that, should we fear them after all?

        • ntt

          of course we should,without the underlying hatred, they aren't following the koran,ergo they aren,t good muslims.

    • Holmz

      Again, pathetic fear mongering incredibly uninformed dumbasses like you are going to bring this beautiful country of ours closer to what the US was in the past..How about we kill all those Muslims instead? It is people like you that condoned slavery, segregation of Jews and probably still do to this day. I highly doubt you're the lease concerned about gay-rights and women-rights because if you actually have any intellect at all, you wouldn't go on mindless hatred tirades like these..I have Muslim friends who are more deserving to be Canadian than you are. Perhaps we should also label the whole christian church pedophilic because of the actions of a few bad apples right? Go read before you voice your worthless opinion. Pathetic and down right racist

  • Olaf

    I would like, just once, for someone to say "He's a mass murderer/serial killer/terrorist/etc.? Yea, totally saw that coming. Doesn't surprise me in the least". I think I would say I expected it even if I didn't, just so I would sound wise.

    • Sean

      Dibs on all but a few of the commenters around here. I totally see – or will have seen – it coming.

  • Angela

    I’ve seen the news…I’ve heard the press conference. I am not convinced yet. I hate to say this, but why isn’t the evidence that is being put forward a little more convincing, a tad more detailed and compelling? Two are on the same hockey team, one man was on Canadian idol dressed as a traditional Muslim and couldn’t sing…another had computer circuit boards – multifunctional things, like wires, who can tell what use they would be put to – good or evil or neutral. I respect the police and their work. I think that the Canadian government is trustworthy. But man, this is weird!

    • Arianna

      No this isn't 'weird,' it's expected. The Imans are to blame; they spew anger at the mosques/community centers every week in each major city where large number of Muslims reside.

      I am thankful to our police force, RCMP and CSIS for their protection. Now it's time to bring our Troops home to do their job 'here.'

  • Prof Lori

    The shock, the horror expressed by fellow Muslims underlines their tacit support of terrorism at a time when these arrests should be condemned by ALL Canadians.

    BAN ALL MUSLIM IMMIGRATION NOW!!

  • Albert

    "A nice,funny, friendly guy with a smiling face" The most likable and friendly face presented to gullible humans is the face of Satan!

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