“Make a bomb in the kitchen of your Mom.”
The clever, rhyming yet chilling headline was part of an article that Sabrine Djermane and El Mahdi Jamali are believed to have used as a reference while they were allegedly making preparations to build a pressure cooker bomb that could have killed up to 10 people.
The article was from an issue of an online publication called Inspire that was published by the terrorist group al-Qaida. The byline on the article was “the AQ Chief.”
While carrying out search warrants in their investigation into Djermane and Jamali, INSET — a division of the RCMP — found a handwritten version of the guidelines to build the bomb. Initially, INSET was investigating concerns, expressed by Djermane’s friends and relatives, that the couple were planning to leave Canada to join ISIL in Syria. Evidence of their alleged plans to build a pressure cooker bomb was discovered when search warrants were carried out.
The person who copied from the article apparently was only interested in jotting down the instructions and not the article itself.
For example, part of the article includes an introductory sentence that reads: “The pressure cooker is the most effective method.” The sentence is unnecessary to assemble the actual bomb. Whoever made the handwritten copy began to copy the sentence but then crossed it out before continuing.
On Monday, RCMP explosives expert Sgt. Sylvain Fiset told the jury that the instructions published in Inspire could be used to assemble a bomb using a common pressure cooker that can be purchased by anyone at a store that sells kitchen appliances.
Besides the handwritten instructions, INSET also found many of the ingredients for the bomb inside a bag from a Dollarama store. A receipt inside the bag revealed that the common household items were purchased together on a day close to when Djermane and Jamali were arrested in April 2015.
“Buying these ingredients does not raise suspicion,” the author of the Inspire article wrote. “It is easily disposed of if the enemy searches your home. Sniffing dogs are not trained to recognize them as bomb making ingredients.”
The explosives expert said more than a few ingredients were not found when the search warrants were carried out, including coffee filters and a clock.
“In one or two days the bomb could be ready to kill at least 10 people,” the article said.
The explosives expert on the witness stand said there are some things about the pressure cooker bomb that he is unable to testify about in open court “for security reasons.”
“But yes it is true that in one or two days it could be ready to kill,” the expert said while adding it is difficult to estimate how many people it could kill. “It depends on the position of the bomb.”
