The delay in the terror case is the defense's fault, Crown said in a written brief

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Prosecutors say the nearly four years between Calgary terror suspect Jamal Borhot's arrest and conviction have been mostly on the defense's end.

In a written brief filed with the Crown Bench in Calgary court, Crown lawyers Domenic Puglia and Kira Condro argued that Borchot was not entitled to a stay of proceedings based on unreasonable delay.

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Defense attorney Pavel Miltzarek filed a complaint against the Charter, arguing that his client's right to a timely trial was violated and that the charges against him should be dismissed.

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But prosecutors say much of the 44 months and eight days since Borhot's arrest in September 2020, which ends at the end of May, is the result of defense delays or unusual circumstances in the case.

34-year-old Borkhot faces three charges of participating in the activities of a terrorist group. He is accused of traveling to Syria to help ISIS in 2013 and 2014.

Prosecutors noted that Borchot changed lawyers three times and that the case was litigated separately in Federal Court on defense requests to disclose processed human source information under the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) Act and national security requests under the Canada Evidence Act.

They said the decision in the Jordan decision meant that complex cases could take longer.

“This is a complicated situation,” they noted.

“Terrorism prosecutions and the terrorism provisions of the Criminal Code have been consistently cited as complex.”

They said the Borkhot prosecutor's office “has most of the symptoms mentioned in Jordan, which constitute a particularly complex case.”

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Among them was a “volume of disclosure” that the Crown had to provide the defence, about 17,000 investigative files and another 18,000 files relating to an investigation involving another investigative team.

More than 60 witnesses will also appear in court, including two experts, one a German doctor who will testify about ISIS and Syria, and another who will speak Arabic to English and confirm the accuracy of the Facebook testimony.

“The Crown has made every effort to streamline the file and move this case forward. From the beginning, the King had a clear plan. If those plans changed, they changed immediately and repeatedly,” prosecutors said.

“Mr. Borkhot's … Charter rights were not violated. Much of the delay falls at the feet of the defense, as they admittedly do,” they wrote.

“While this complex case is expected to take 44 months and eight days from the date of arrest, after necessary deductions of 27 months for defense-based and waived delays and discrete events, the net time for Jordan's purposes is 17 months. »

Both sides will make oral arguments before Judge Corina Dario when the trial begins Monday.

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