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Federal Court clears decision to revoke Raed Jaser’s criminal pardon

Via train terror plot
Chiheb Esseghaier is led off a plane by an RCMP officer at Buttonville Airport, just north of Toronto, on Tuesday April 23, 2013. THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Chris Young

TORONTO — Federal Court has found no evidence of political interference in a decision to revoke the criminal pardon of a man accused of plotting to attack a passenger train.

Judge Keith Boswell also said the Parole Board of Canada was not unfair to Raed Jaser when it decided to revoke the pardon on grounds he was no longer of “good conduct.”

READ MOREStripping criminal pardon from alleged terrorist was constitutional: feds

The Toronto resident was convicted of fraud and uttering threats between 1997 and 2001 but was pardoned in 2009.

The parole board revoked the pardon — now known as a records suspension — after RCMP charged Jaser and a Montreal man in 2013 an alleged plot to derail a Via or Amtrak passenger train between Toronto and New York City.

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Boswell said the charges against the 36-year-old speak for themselves, regardless of whether the allegations turn out to be true.

He also said the decision to revoke the pardon would not be prejudicial to Jaser’s upcoming trial because the judge can decide whether the criminal record can be used against him.

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