An undercover RCMP officer befriended a Surrey couple by pretending jihadist sympathies, took them shopping for material, and provided phoney explosives so they thought they were going to emulate the Boston Marathon bombers.
While portraying them as a "homegrown terrorist cell" - calling themselves "al-Qaida Canada" - prosecutor Peter Eccles said he didn't have to show the two accused of plotting slaughter at Canada Day ceremonies in 2013 have any real connection to Islamic extremists.
"They don't have to know the secret handshake or have the secret decoder ring," Eccles insisted in his opening address Monday at the trial of John Nuttall and Amanda Korody. "We don't think al-Qaida knew anything about them ... or cared."
Allegedly self-radicalized Muslim converts, Nuttall and Korody have pleaded not guilty to four charges of conspiracy and knowingly facilitating a terrorist plan on July 1, 2013. The six-woman, eightman jury heard it will be a lengthy trial in B.C. Supreme Court, with an expected 20 witnesses for the Crown being called over the next four months.
Eccles explained that the entire case rests on a months-long undercover operation that began in February 2013.
Mounties pretending to be supportive of Islamist extremism prompted the pair to construct three pressure-cooker bombs from parts purchased at Walmart and London Drugs, and to record videos taking responsibility urging similar violence in the name of Allah, Eccles said.
Some 40 hours of surveillance recordings made in stores, cars, hotel rooms and elsewhere in Metro Vancouver and Victoria will be entered as evidence, he added.
Defence lawyers, however, warned that although the jury would hear "very dramatic testimony," jurors should wait until everything was put in context before making up their mind.
Nuttall's lawyer, Marilyn Sandford, said her client's beliefs at the time were "repugnant" but the case would turn on his motivation.
Korody's lawyer, Mark Jette, told the jury his client was "ensnared" by the undercover operation and that during that time the recovering addict with a methadone prescription was vomiting daily and consuming Gravol as if it were "one of the major food groups."
The pair sat impassively following proceedings except for one brief human moment. From inside a Plexiglas prisoner's dock in the province's bombproof, highsecurity courtroom, Nuttall spotted his mother, Maureen Smith, and grandmother, Loreen, in the public gallery. They mouthed "I love you" to each other.
Eccles said the two were inspired the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15, 2013, and downloaded the same plans for building improvised explosive devices. In that attack, three people were killed and nearly 300 injured.
The trial continues Feb. 10.