Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
Alleged extremist a one-time Canadian Idol contestant?
HO-YOUTUBE-CTV / THE CANADIAN PRESS Enlarge Image
A contestant identified as Khurram Sher auditions for Idol in 2008.
TORONTO -- Moonwalking, doing the robot dance and singing a deliberately woeful version of Avril Lavigne's Complicated on TV's Canadian Idol.
Is that part of the profile of an alleged homegrown terrorist?
Police won't confirm it is, but that was the picture being presented to Canadians in reports on one of three men accused of plotting attacks in the nation's capital.
The picture that emerged Thursday of Khurram Sayed Sher was one of stark contrasts.
The comic performance and an alleged terrorist.
"It's sort of absurd. It is a little weird," Jake Gold, a judge on Idol and music manager in Toronto, said of the allegations.
"He was a funny guy. At the same time, it's not a laughing matter."
Sher, the alleged terrorist, is a father of three, a doctor who graduated from one of Canada's most prestigious medical schools and an avid hockey player.
He is someone police said conspired with others in a Canadian bomb plot, but also a doctor who went to Pakistan to help after an earthquake.
Sher, 28, born and raised in Montreal, was arrested Thursday at the home he had just moved to in London, Ont., a few kilometres from the hospital where he had just started a new job.
RCMP Sgt. Marc Laporte confirmed the arrest "without incident" just before 8 a.m. in south-end London and said the suspect was being transferred to court in Ottawa where two others alleged to be part of the conspiracy appeared briefly.
Sher was named in court documents as part of a conspiracy in Ottawa to "knowingly facilitate terrorist activities" in Canada and abroad.
Police spent the day searching the home for evidence.
"I don't know what's happening," said a neighbour about the police activity on the street. The neighbour, who did not give her name, said the Sher family -- husband, wife and kids -- had moved in a few weeks ago.
A Khurram Sher was one of thousands of Canadians who auditioned for Canadian Idol two years ago, and made it onto television for his entertainment value, rather than his talent performing Lavigne's Complicated to some amusing dance steps.
While the dancing performance gets the thumbs-up from the judges, the singing is panned by the panel.
Dressed in traditional Pakistani garb, Sher hams it up with boy band dance moves.
"Have you ever thought of being a comedian?" judge Sass Jordan asks.
"Not really, I like hockey, music, acting," Sher replies.
-- The Canadian Press
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 27, 2010 A4
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