Set Up: The Bombing that Never Was

Episode 220:

The attention grabbing headline of the the article in The Province newspaper on the morning of July 3, 2013 screamed, “RCMP foil Canada Day bomb plot”, the subheading read, “VICTORIA: Two British Columbians allegedly hatch scheme to blow up legislature.” Since March of that year, RCMP had been engaged in what they called Project Souvenir, a complex and expensive sting operation to gather evidence against two Surrey residents, John Stuart Nuttall, 38, and his common-law wife, Amanda Marie Korody, 29. The RCMP alleged that the pair were Islamist extremist bent on blowing up BC’s legislature buildings in Victoria and killing as many innocent Canadians as possible on Canada Day that year. On the morning of July 1, the couple had apparently placed three pressure cooker bombs strategically near concrete planters on the west and east sides of the Provincial legislature buildings.

The pair were taken into custody in the hallway of a hotel in Delta, B.C. where they had used a room, wired by cops for video and sound, where they had built their bombs and spoken openly about their plot to kill Canadians. But, as the truth came out, evidence revealed that Nuttall and Korody were not even remotely the devious threats to national security they’d been said to be and that the RCMP had in fact, according to court findings, entrapped the pair. The bombs had been inert, made using intentionally flawed designs and materials handed to the couple by the RCMP themselves during the more than one million dollar operation to bust them.

Sources:

John Nuttall | ReverbNation

R. v. Nuttall, 2016 BCSC 1404 (CanLII), < https://canlii.ca/t/gsq89 >

R. v. Nuttall, 2018 BCCA 479 (CanLII), < https://canlii.ca/t/hwnvs >

Korody v. Canada (Attorney General), 2015 FC 1398 (CanLII), < https://canlii.ca/t/gpfvp>

Friends of John Nuttall say he was a great friend, but was also troubled | Globalnews.ca

3 Jul 2013, 4 – The Province at Newspapers.com

3 Jul 2013, 3 – Times Colonist at Newspapers.com

4 Jul 2013, 4 – The Vancouver Sun at Newspapers.com

CKNW — NUTTALL & KORODY Video

Vancouver Sun — Raw: Alleged terrorists Nuttall, Korody talk about Canada Day plot

Vancouver Sun — Raw: John Nuttall, accused in B.C. terror case, speaks with undercover officer