VANCOUVER – An unfocused and disorganized plan for a terrorist attack against the B.C. legislature allegedly masterminded by a husband-and-wife duo had no hope of success were it not for the support and guidance provided by undercover police, a B.C. court has heard.
John Nuttall’s defence lawyer Marilyn Sandford began closing submissions to a B.C. Supreme Court jury on Tuesday, suggesting RCMP officers posing as terrorists manipulated her client and his wife into planting homemade pressure-cooker explosives on the legislature grounds on Canada Day 2013.
Nuttall and his wife, Amanda Korody, were damaged by poverty and stricken with drug addiction, said Sandford. The arrival of a key undercover officer feigning friendship injected meaning into their lives, as well as money, nice clothes, spiritual guidance and attention, which all contributed to the pair feeling important and validated, she added.
“Controlling relationships have as their hallmark strategic manipulations of love and fear,” Sandford told attentive jury members.
Sandford reminding the jury how Nuttall had said in covert video recordings that he feared for his and Korody’s life at the hands of their supposed new friends.
“It’s not inconsistent that John Nuttall loved and feared these people.”
Nuttall and Korody have each pleaded not guilty to three terrorism-related charges: conspiring to commit murder, and possessing and planting explosives on behalf of a terrorist organization. They were arrested on July 1, 2013, as part of a months-long RCMP sting operation involving more than 240 officers, the court has heard.
In her closing arguments, Sandford pointed to repeated instances where the primary undercover officer, posing as an Arab businessman, would chastise Nuttall for failing to come up with a feasible attack plan.
In earlier video evidence Nuttall proposed a slew of fantastical ideas, including hijacking a nuclear submarine, firing rockets over the border at Seattle, taking a VIA Rail train hostage or demanding the release of all Guantanamo Bay prisoners.
But Sandford said the diagrams Nuttall drew outlining his bomb-building aspirations were “a joke.”
She accused the police of hypocrisy in telling Nuttall and Korody they could back out at any time, telling the jury that those assurances usually immediately followed an undercover officer expressing disappointment in Nuttall and berating him for his lack of progress in the plot.
“On the one hand, ‘It’s all up to you, it’s your decision.’ On the other hand, ‘You’ve wasted our money … the brothers are going to be unhappy,” said Sandford, describing the typical interaction with officers.
“On the one hand it’s, ‘We’re just here to help you, it’s your plan, of course, it’s not our plan.’ On the other hand: ‘Your plans are not feasible, they’re not doable, they’re not realistic,'” she added.
“It’s a mixed message with a purpose, members of the jury,” Sandford said, raising her voice and looking directly at the jurors. “And the purpose is manipulation of a man with lots of problems.”
Sandford is expected to finish her closing arguments on Tuesday and will be followed by Korody’s lawyer Mark Jette.
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