Canada’s TT terror suspect:

HAMILTON, CANADA: Cars and vans with flashing lights appeared out of nowhere and surrounded the Lexus. They forced it off the road onto the narrow median of the Gardiner Expressway.

Seconds later, Ahmad Ghany, wearing a traditional Islamic cap, was out of his beloved car, hands cuffed behind his back. A stranger was patting him down.

In the passenger seat Ghany’s 17-year-old wife sat in stunned silence, then burst into tears.

The men took the car. They took her husband of two months.

Then, according to Ghany’s friends, they left her by herself, in a hijab, at the edge of one of Toronto’s busiest expressways.

That’s how fast Ahmad Ghany, a 21-year-old McMaster graduate who has led a life of privilege, ended up ensnared in this country’s largest terrorist investigation.

His wife called a taxi to take her to the Islamic seminar where they’d been heading. She knew familiar faces would be there.

That’s where Ibrahim Hindy first saw his friend’s wife. He was unaware of what had happened, unaware who the weeping woman was behind the black veil, ignorant of the fact that Ghany was in solitary confinement in a Milton jail accused of being a terrorist.

“He’s kind of a nerd,” Hindy says of his friend.

Every neighbourhood seems to have one — the house where all the kids go to play.

Ghany’s brown-brick house was that place to Muslim children in the upscale Erindale neighbourhood of Mississauga.

“He’s got an amazing basement — a cool TV, all these gaming consoles, Ping Pong table, an amazing pool table. We’d go and play there and stuff like that,” Hindy says.

The boys would go there on Thursday nights to shoot pool and socialise, or order in pizza.

“He’s really, really quiet and really humble. He has a beautiful Koran recitation and whenever we try to get him to lead the prayers he refuses because he’s so humble. His voice is so beautiful, but he’d never do it,” Hindy says.

While he’s close to Ahmad, Hindy doesn’t know his wife well. The two were married in a small ceremony at her home April 12.

Hindy is struggling to understand how his friend was ensnared in the allegations that have captured the attention of a continent. Was it the Thursday night gatherings? Did someone use Ghany’s laptop without him knowing? Or was he arrested simply because of his brother-in-law — one of the accused ring leaders?

“His sin is he got married. That’s the only thing that dragged him into this,” Hindy says.

He wasn’t a political guy. He didn’t spend time on the Internet.

“It’s like a dream or something these past few days. It’s not real. It feels surreal.”

Hindy called his friend the day of the arrest looking for a ride. Ghany had to say no.

Hindy saw the grainy home video broadcast on television of Ghany’s arrest.

“Everyone was talking about it after and saying ‘eight cruisers to take down Ahmad?’” Hindy says, chuckling. “Ahmad wouldn’t hurt a fly. He’s the most quiet guy ever — why would you need eight cruisers for Ahmad? Give him a little shove and he’d go down.”

The Ghany family is well-known in the Muslim community. His father is a prominent member of the Taric Islamic Centre in North York.

No one from the centre would answer questions.

While Ghany was wealthy, he was also generous, always picking up the tab for friends. Hindy said the only way he could ever pick up a tab was by sneaking away to pay.

Ghany has only two obvious connections to the alleged terrorist cell. The first is his wife’s brother-in-law Zakaria Amara, accused as one of the ring leaders. The second is the Ar-Rahman Qu’ran Centre, where many of the suspects are alleged to have met.

Hindy insists Ghany wasn’t involved in the centre — he didn’t play sports there and didn’t socialise. He just nipped in for prayers when in the neighbourhood to visit his wife.

The couple, though married, still live apart with their own families, which apparently isn’t uncommon in the culture. Hindy said once they move in together, there is usually another ceremony.

Ghany typically prayed at the prominent Islamic Society of North America or ISNA mosque — a recognisable beige building just south of the QEW.

Ibrahim’s father, Aly Hindy, the imam at Scarborough’s Salaheddin Islamic Centre, warned Dr. Farouk Ghany that his son was being watched in April. That was the day he performed a marriage ceremony for Ahmad and the 17-year-old he thinks was named Rana Farooq.

“It was devastating for him,” the elder Hindy says.

The imam has himself been the target of an investigation by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

The centre he leads has been the subject of CSIS attention and one of its founding directors — Hassan Farhat, also known as Abdul Jaber — was linked last year to a group that is believed to be connected to al-Qaeda.

The elder Hindy praised Ghany for getting married so young and not trying to date girls and “fool around.”

“I could say he’s a role model for all Canadians to follow,” he said. “He wanted to be a good Muslim and good Canadian citizen — why can’t you be both at the same time?”

He said it was the link between Ghany and Zakaria Amara that got him caught up in the conspiracy — one he considers a “witch hunt.”

When Hindy found out the government was watching Ghany — he won’t say how — he told his own son not to go to Dr Ghany’s home.

When Ghany walked with other prisoners into a packed Brampton courtroom this week, he shuffled in with his thin wrists cuffed and ankles shackled. He was wearing prison-issued clothes — a white T-shirt, grey trousers and blue running shoes without the laces.

He was the only one in the line-up to tuck his shirt deeply into his pants.

Even in prison garb, Ghany looked neat and tidy. Perhaps a tad meek.

Unlike Amara — who smiled and laughed during the hearing — Ghany kept his eyes on the floor while his lawyer fought to get a chance to speak privately with him.

The family has hired prominent defence lawyer Rocco Galati. Galati at one point defended Abdellah Ouzghar — a Hamilton man who is accused of being involved in terrorism.

Ahmad Mustafa Ghany graduated May 19 from McMaster with a Bachelor’s degree in Health Sciences. It’s a small programme that requires a high school average of 90 per cent to even get a second look.

Hindy said Ghany was planning to return to McMaster to get his Master’s.

None of Ghany’s 78 classmates wanted to talk about Ghany. They wouldn’t say why.

The McMaster public relations department doesn’t want professors to talk either.

By all accounts, Ghany has lived a life of privilege — an immigrant’s dream.

The streets in his affluent neighbourhood, just north of the QEW, are lined with mature trees and expensive cars. But it isn’t just affluence that makes the Ghany family prominent — it’s also their faith. His father, an immigrant from Trinidad, is a urologist in Toronto, Brampton and Orangeville. Dr Farouk Ghany came to Canada more than 40 years ago and returned to Trinidad in 1980 to marry his second wife, Umaima Ghany.

Ahmad was born in 1984, the second of three children. He has two sisters, Anneesa and Ameena.

Umaima followed Dr Ghany back to Canada, where she began to manage his medical practice.

By that point, Ghany’s father already had one son by a previous marriage — a son who died the same year Ahmad was born.

In immigration court documents, his parents said they sold a Brampton house in the early 1980s because it had too many memories of the failed marriage and dead son.

They also said they’d bought an apartment in downtown Toronto, assuming their three young children would eventually attend the University of Toronto, just as their father had.

In February 1985, Ghany’s family packed up and moved to Saudi Arabia where Dr. Ghany had a contract with King Saud University.

Court documents pointed to the son’s death as one reason for the change.

They rented their Mississauga home while they were out of the country. Their belongings, including medical files, were put in a friend’s basement for storage awaiting their return — something that didn’t happen until the first Gulf War.

While in Saudi Arabia, Ghany was schooled through correspondence courses so he wouldn’t get behind in his Canadian studies.

He returned to Sawmill Valley Junior public school in Mississauga and eventually graduated from Erindale High School, walking distance of his family’s home on Robin Drive.

These days, all the kids who used to go to Ghany’s basement are silent. Young people in the neighbourhood aren’t even telling their parents they knew Ghany.

“People’s parents are very paranoid right now. One of my friends — his mom took away his cellphone and said ‘you’re not using this any more,’” Ibrahim Hindy says.

“Honestly, when I heard about it, I was absolutely afraid because if they would take him, then it looks like they’d take just about anyone.”

Hindy wonders if his friend can get a fair trial in the midst of what he calls hysteria.

“They cast the net far too wide.”