OTTAWA (AFP) — One of 18 terror suspects arrested last year in an alleged plot to blow up public buildings and behead Canada's prime minister was denied bail Monday, prosecutors said.
Steven Chand, one of the 18 Muslim men and boys caught in a massive police sting operation in June 2006, "will remain in jail," Dan Brien, spokesman for the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, told AFP.
Two of his co-accused have already been released under strict bail conditions pending trial, and charges against four other teen suspects were suspended.
In September, federal prosecutors filed indictments against the remaining 14 men.
The suspects, charged under Canada's anti-terrorism laws, are accused of hatching a plan to storm parliament and take hostages, hoping to force Ottawa to withdraw its 2,300 troops from Afghanistan.
If their demands were not met, the hostage-takers intended to behead their captives, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and also planned to bomb several public buildings in Toronto, according to court documents.
Police said the members of the group purchased what they thought was three tonnes of ammonium nitrate -- a fertilizer that can be used to make explosives -- but authorities tracking their moves had substituted a harmless substance.
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