Timing of Canadian terror arrests questioned; did they come too late or too soon?

Two men suspected of plotting to derail a passenger train on Canadian soil as part of an al-Qaeda-supported terrorist attack are now working their way through the criminal justice system.

Arrested on Monday and appearing in court on Tuesday (and again today) the fate of Raed Jaser and Chiheb Esseghaier now rests in the hands of Canadian courts. But the timing of those arrests has come into question on various fronts, with the Conservative government defending it as appropriate and U.S. officials suggesting the arrests were purposely executed in the wake of last week’s Boston Marathon bombing.

RCMP investigators have said the two suspects had the capacity and were prepared to attack a VIA Rail passenger train but that no attack was imminent.

“Had this plot been carried out, it would have resulted in people being killed or seriously injured,” RCMP Assistant Commissioner James Malizia announced on Monday.

“I want to assure the public that while the RCMP believed the accused had the capacity and intent to carry out these criminal acts, there was no imminent threat to the general public, rail employees, train passengers or infrastructure.”

So, why did the arrests come on Monday? Some commentators have noted that the arrests happened to come on the same day that the Conservative government had rescheduled a debate on anti-terrorism laws.

Other reports hinted the arrests had actually been scheduled for weeks earlier but were delayed, possibly at the request of their U.S. counterparts.

[ Related: Image of normalcy surrounds Canada’s terror plot suspects ]

CBC News reports the RCMP had been tracking the two suspects for a year — a mission that included two undercover officers watching Esseghaier on a flight from Canada to Cancun for a biomedical conference.

Sources told the network that the arrests were made on Monday because the behaviour of one of the suspects had grown increasingly erratic. The surveillance was part of a larger investigation with the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, which is said to include at least one suspect south of the border.

Two U.S. officials told the Wall Street Journal that Canada accelerated the plan to arrest the two suspects in the wake of last week’s bombing in Boston.

The Journal reports that FBI officials had asked Canada to wait for the U.S. to complete its end of the investigation, and that RCMP had considered moving against the two weeks earlier.

The Journal writes:

A lawyer for one of the accused has suggested the timing of the arrests was “notable,” and an RCMP spokesperson told the Canadian Press that questions of timing should be directed at the government.

Immigration Minister Jason Kenney, however, has said the government had nothing to do with the timing of the arrests, referring to such suggestions as “conspiracy theories.”

[ More Brew: RCMP say arrests thwarted terrorist attack on Canadian train ]

Kenny told the Canadian Press, “If I were a lawyer, I wouldn’t go down the track of conspiracy theories if I wanted to have credibility.”

Massive international investigations, such as the one that came before the arrests of Jaser and Esseghaier, certainly have many moving parts, and involve many organizations with their own schedules and agendas.

Debating whether the arrests came too soon for the FBI, too late for the RCMP, or just right for the government is a benefit afforded to the public because, whatever the timing, it came before an attack.

If a passenger train had been derailed as part of a terrorist plot, everyone would be in agreement. It would have been too late.