A young man on trial in Brampton, Ont., for his role in an alleged bomb plot in the Toronto area in 2006 was kept in the dark by the other accused and treated like "sheep, non-entities," an RCMP and CSIS mole testified Monday.

Mubin Shaikh, the Crown's star witness, played down the role of the defendant, who cannot be named because he was under 18 at the time of his arrest in June 2006.

Shaikh said the accused, one of four youths picked up by police and CSIS agents two years ago, was not aware that a weekend training exercise held in a resort area north of Toronto was supposed to hone their skills as militant fighters.

The young men were told the winter camping trip was part of a Muslim religious retreat, not a terror training exercise as the Crown has alleged in documents submitted to court, he said.

The alleged ringleader in the case, who is awaiting trial along with nine other adults, deliberately kept them on "the down low," Shaikh testified.

Firearms training at the camp, near Washago, Ont., "freaked out" the young men, Shaikh said, and their camping skills left much to be desired. The youths, three of whom have had charges stayed against them, accidentally set fire to a sleeping bag and melted the soles of their shoes by sitting too close to a campfire.

Four others from among the original accused, all adults, have also had charges stayed.

Since the Brampton court proceedings began last month, the Crown has played audiotapes of wiretap evidence of the accused allegedly discussing details of various planned attacks.

Raids and lurid plot details

On June 2, 2006, hundreds of police officers and CSIS agents staged a series of raids on homes and other premises in and around Toronto, telling the public after the high-profile arrests that plots to attack buildings, blow up Parliament and behead the prime minister had been under discussion.

CBC News later learned that Shaikh had been undercover with the alleged plotters as a mole since 2005, helping the Crown gather hundreds of hours of secret audio surveillance.

He told the court in Brampton Monday that he became an informant despite his own strong support for Muslim freedom fighters in Chechnya, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Canada, he said, was no place for that sort of action and he agreed to help the authorities here penetrate a suspected home-grown militant cell because of that feeling.

His testimony continues Tuesday.