‘Dancing doctor’ pleads not guilty in Ottawa court to terrorism charge

What a strange journey it's been for Khurram Syed Sher, from medical school to Canadian Idol to the staff of a hospital and now to a Canadian court, where he's on trial as a suspected terrorist.

The Montreal-born, McGill University-trained doctor was arrested in 2010, along with two other men, who are scheduled for trial in April and can't be named under a publication ban.

Sher, a pathologist who was working at a London, Ont., hospital, appeared in an Ottawa court Monday and pleaded not guilty to one count of conspiring to facilitate terrorist activity. He will be tried by judge alone, the Ottawa Citizen reported.

The Crown alleges Sher, who has been living in Toronto on bail, and his co-accused were part of a terror cell plotting an attack that was deemed a threat to the Ottawa area and to Canadian security, the Citizen reported.

Prosecutors sought to have Sher's trial closed to the media but the Citizen and CBC News successfully challenged the application.

[ Related: Dancing doctor to face terror charge more than three years after arrest ]

The Crown claims Sher was part of an international plot stretching from Ottawa to Afganistan, Dubai, Iran and Pakistan, The Canadian Press reported. At the time of the arrests, the RCMP said the group was moving into the preparatory phase of the operation. Three men believed to be living overseas have been named as un-indicted co-conspirators.

Police seized from an Ottawa townhouse terrorist literature, videos and manuals, as well as dozens of electronic circuit boards that investigators alleged were designed to detonate bombs remotely, CP said.

News media dubbed Sher "the dancing doctor" because of his unsuccessful 2008 audition for Canadian Idol.

A YouTube video of the audition, which has since disappeared from the site, shows Sher in traditional Pakistani garb singing Avril Lavigne's song 'Complicated' in a fake Pakistani accent and trying to moon-walk, the Citizen said.

[ Related: Third arrested in VIA Rail terror plot 'radicalized' Canadian suspect: FBI ]

CBC News reported the Crown is expected to submit evidence from American and British intelligence agencies but how much of it will considered admissible remains to be seen.

"It would be very difficult to demonstrate that this evidence would have been collected overseas in accordance with Canadian law and the Canadian Constitution," Christian Leuprecht, a terrorism and security intelligence expert at the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ont., told CBC News.

The Crown is expected to begin laying out its case on Tuesday.