Apparently, Byron Sonne had the right stuff to make a number of high-powered explosives
Alleged aspiring terrorist and amateur baker Byron Sonne had enough explosive material to make five one-kilogram bombs, according to a Crown expert who testified at Sonne’s trial earlier this week. (In case the significance of this fact isn’t obvious, the Sun puts things in more, ahem, inflammatory terms: “Imagine the horrific explosion that ripped apart the London Underground in 2005—and now almost double it.”) Even the vegetable oil and almond flour that previously caused us to chuckle could have been bomb ingredients. While this is the stuff sensational headlines are made of, the greater significance is that this also marks the first truly interesting, albeit still questionable, revelation of the Sonne trial—it isn’t just about Flickr photos anymore. Read the entire story [Toronto Sun] »
According to the Crown’s explosives expert Byron was many days of hazardous lab work away from crude product which would require yet another kind of explosive before it would be able to maybe damage the rear end of a bus. The expert testified that no buildings were at risk.
But let’s not allow the facts cloud the case.
Any amateur chemist could have enough material to make a bomb. That is exactly why possession is not a crime. You have to show intent. They found no evidence that any kind of explosive was being made. They found no recipes for making bombs. They *did* find everything needed to build model rocket engine, they *did* find an apparatus for safely packing model rocket engines, they *did* find letters between Byron and the Canadian model rocketry association.
Having a car, you are equipped and capable of driving into a crowd. Of course, there is no evidence that you are going to, so you won’t get into trouble. The problem here is that amateur chemistry isn’t well understood by the public, so fear blinds them to assume there can be only malicious intent. That couldn’t be further from the truth, and the onus remains on the crown to show *intent* to do harm. Thus far, they have brought forward not a single piece of evidence to that effect.
Think about the consequences if we, as a society, allow mere possession of legal material to be itself evidence of intent. It should scare you.
This article is full of misunderstandings.
Byron did not have any explosive materials to make bombs. What he did have was an amateur science lab with random stuff that could theoretically be used to create explosive materials. All quantities found were within legal bounds and can also be found in a school’s chemistry lab for example.
Note the *theoretically* in the above sentence. Because there is ZERO evidence that he actually had plans to build bombs.
Also note that ‘building bombs’ is not even one of the charges! The Crown has publicly stated that they do not think that Byron had the intention to blow stuff up at the G20.
“The Crown is not trying to prove that Sonne planned to blow anything up at the G20, only that he had explosives at home and a fascination with the summit.”
(The terminology used here is again wrong. There were no explosives found, only chemistry materials that were not combined and perfectly legal)
The article also does not mention that Byron did not have the time, equipment and very likely the expertise to actually turn those random chemistry components into an explosive. These things were also discussed in court but are less sensational to write about of course.
It really saddens me that this article is basically a conviction / conclusion based on hearing half the facts of a case that has barely started. There is still much to be said and talked about and it remains to be seen if even possessing those chemistry components was illegal.
Byron Sonne is obviously a terrorist. He had chemicals – and who else has chemicals? Plus he was against he G20 – and who else is against the G20? TERRORISTS.
ah, just kidding. But what this will do (and as a proud Harper-voting conservative, I wholeheartedly approve) is hopefully terrify the politics nerds into apathy. As climate and economic changes sweep through the country and we work to protect the job-creators and property rights by attacking wages and unions, it helps to bring the hammer down as hard as possible on anyone who might try to question or second-guess the authorities.
Byron Leon Sonne is scary. He was trying to gather seeds for dangerous plants such as the deadly belladonna and the castor oil plant so he could extract the deadly ricin.
Like any good black market, underground biochemist or chemist, he was aiming to synthesize desmethylprodine
ignoring the risk that he could accidentally end up with the neurotoxin MPTP which causes brain damage and
Parkinsons.
Yeah.
Someone said he had plans for or was already in the process of gathering materials for VX, sarin and DDT. Very risky. But he is a proven risky guy. The ‘ i’m just a friendly but curious gardener living in Rosedale ‘ was a cover. Organophosphates are the basis for all sorts of insecticides used in the garden, so now he’s a gardener. What’s wrong with this guy?
Even the Judge in this case commented that everyone has this stuff in their garage.