A young Montrealer has pleaded guilty to criminal charges in connection with a series of small firebombing targeting Jewish institutions.

Under evidence that couldn’t be reported until their guilty plea, investigators say Omar Bulphred and an accomplice were arrested after police heard them on wiretaps talking about abducting a man at random to rob him and cut his throat.

Mr. Bulphred, 23, was born in Algeria. He pleaded guilty to three counts of arson and two of uttering threats Thursday morning at the Montreal provincial courthouse.

The accomplice Azim Ibragimov, 25, of Kazakh origin, had already pleaded guilty.

Evidence at their bail hearing showed that the two styled themselves as radical Muslim terrorists.

Police say Mr. Bulphred researched bomb-making techniques and looked at possible terrorism targets such as Quebec’s sole nuclear plant, the Montreal Stock Exchange, a military base, a train station and the U.S. consulate.

According to court testimony that was under publication ban until now, Mr. Bulphred was heard on wiretap telling Mr. Ibragimov that he took orders from others but the police couldn’t establish if that claim was true.

Following their arrests in April of 2007, each man had been charged with uttering threats, conspiracy to kidnap, commit armed robbery and confine someone, possession of an explosive and arson.

The case began around midnight, Sept. 2, 2006, when someone firebombed the Skver-Toldos Orthodox Jewish Boys School in the Montreal district of Outremont.

There were minimal damages. A letter claiming responsibility on behalf of the “Islamic Jihad” was later delivered, which warned of further attacks. “Convert to Islam. It would be better for you Westerners,” the letter added, demanding the release of 19 Muslim terror suspects arrested earlier that year in Toronto.

Ten days later, a parked Chevrolet was firebombed, apparently picked at random, and another letter was found, demanding the release of the Toronto suspects.

Undercover agents kept watch on Mr. Bulphred as he went to a public library to use an Internet station. The computer was later seized and police found that he did searches for websites about the stock exchange, digital watches, LEDs, TNT and chemical compounds.

The conversations police wiretapped suggest that Mr. Bulphred played a leading role with Mr. Ibragimov being a follower.

During his bail hearing his spring, Mr. Ibragimov’s relatives noted that the family had Jewish friends and that he was even engaged to a Jewish woman at one point.

She testified that he often picked her up after her dance classes at the YM-YWHA Ben Weider Jewish Community Centre in the Côte des Neiges district.

The centre would be the pair’s next target. Late in the evening of April 3, .on the first day of Passover, someone planted outside the centre a bomb made with two propane canisters taped together. It did minor damages.

A few days later, on April 6, the bug in the apartment recorded the two talking about the Bal en Blanc, a big annual rave party.

Mr. Bulphred was recorded talking to his friend about stalking outside to kidnap “the first gay man who shows up,” an investigator testified at the bail hearing.

She said Mr. Bulphred talked of tying up their victim and cutting his throat “like a chicken.”

The two then went out to Longue-Pointe, an army garrison near Mr. Bulphred’s apartment, where Mr. Bulphred was seen videotaping the base.

Two days later, the police arrested the two men.

Inside Mr. Bulphred’s apartment, hidden inside a box of Q-tips, police found a computer diskette. On it, the court heard, where bomb-making instructions, details on how to make TNT, details on the Via Rail train station and on Gentilly-2, Quebec’s only nuclear plant.

(Source: Globe & Mail)