OTTAWA - The one-time fiancee of alleged bomb plotter Momin Khawaja says she considered him an angry young Muslim, not an extremist out to blow up civilians.

Zeba Khan told Khawaja's terrorism trial Tuesday she was incredulous upon being woken up by her sister one morning to hear a man with the same name as her once-intended husband had been arrested in Canada.

Appearing in Ontario Superior Court by video link from Dubai, the 27-year-old Khan said it seemed crazy and did not fit with her perception of the person she had hoped to marry.

She said her view of Khawaja's concern for Islam "did not in any way line up to terrorist activity," but was more akin to "let's work in a refugee camp or something."

Khawaja, arrested in Ottawa four years ago, faces seven charges of financing and facilitating terrorism, including the key accusation he built a remote-control device for use in bomb attacks planned by Islamic extremists in Britain.

Five of his alleged co-conspirators were convicted in London and sentenced last year to life in prison.

Their targets were said to include a nightclub, shopping centre and electrical and gas facilities, but the plot was disrupted by British police and security forces.

The Crown has now wrapped up its case. But continued wrangling over admissibility of evidence makes it unclear when defence arguments will begin, or if Khawaja will appear in the witness box.

Khan, who went on to marry another man, confidently fielded questions from Crown and defence lawyers Tuesday about statements she gave the RCMP in Islamabad in July 2004 and Dubai in September 2005.

Flanked by police officers, Khawaja sat expressionless during her testimony.

The Chicago-born Khan spent her early years in the United States before moving to Pakistan with her family. She was engaged to Khawaja in 2003, when both were in their early 20s, but the proposed marriage was called off late that year following a long-distance courtship conducted largely by email.

Evidence filed in the case shows she once exchanged messages with the former software designer on the ethics and merits of waging jihad against western interests.

Wearing a light pink hijab, Khan insisted she did not take Khawaja's declarations about attacking those he deemed enemies of the Muslim world at face value.

"Because he supports these things in theory is not actually proof of his involvement as such," she said.

Khan painted Khawaja as one of countless young Muslims who would naturally be upset about what they saw on the television news, rail openly about it but ultimately do nothing violent.

Under questioning from defence lawyer Lawrence Greenspon, she told court that Khawaja never discussed bombing anything in downtown London during their email correspondence.

"Oh, very definitely no," Khan said.

She defined jihad in broad terms that embrace undertaking life's grand struggles: "So, of course I believe in jihad - it does not mean that I believe in blowing things up."

She evoked the Allied firebombing of Dresden in the Second World War in explaining unintended western deaths in the battles that now rage.

"Sometimes things happen in warfare. Unfortunately innocent people get killed," Khan said.

"In America you call it collateral damage. I don't see this as much different."

In the 2005 interview with police, Khan was adamant she knew nothing of Khawaja's reputed desire to engage in terrorism.

"No, do you think that I would marry an extremist?" she told investigators at the time, noting her mother is a practising Christian.

After reading one of Khawaja's more inflammatory emails, Khan's sister had told her he seemed rather extreme.

"And my response to her was, I bet he's not gonna do it," she told police. "And I bet that if we got married and he tried to do it, I would stop him."

Federal lawyer David McKercher had few questions for Khan.

One reason may be the voluminous email correspondence between Khan and Khawaja - touching on everything from cooking and jewelry to conspiracy and jihad - that was already part of the court record.

Khawaja said in an Oct. 24, 2003, email to Khan that the United States was behind an evil plot against Islam meant to plunder the wealth of Muslims and wipe out entire nations. That treachery should be met with "constant economic J" - violent jihad against western interests, he told her.

"So we have to come up with a way that we can drain their economy of all its resources, cripple their industries, and bankrupt their systems in place, all so that they are forced to withdraw their troops, so they cannot afford to wage war . . . .

"We need constant economic J, blow after blow, until they cripple and fall, never to rise again."

Khawaja cited the powerful effects of the 9-11 attacks on New York and Washington perpetrated by 19 Muslim hijackers, saying "the U.S. economy is practically in a state of recession."

"Would you not say that the actions of 19 men on Sept. 11 are the most accurate, effective, and honourable way of conducting economic J?"

He acknowledged that "innocent human beings died, but there is absolutely no other way of achieving the same objective with the same effect."

The message came two days after Khan told him "we might have differing opinions on how far one can go" in carrying out economic jihad, suggesting that indiscriminate killing was wrong. "Why? Because we have limits. We have honour. We have Islam to guide us in all things, even war, or rather, especially war."

In his Oct. 24 message, Khawaja said: "Picture this, a young bro wearing an explosive vest walks into a busy Israeli nightclub and in midst of all the partying, he presses a button and detonates, killing himself and dozens around him," noting those who died would be young soldiers out on the town, making it acceptable.

In court Tuesday, Khan characterized the scenario depicted by Khawaja as killing "legal combatants on their off time."

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