Prosecutors in a court in London on Monday argued that a man from Ottawa played a key role in what British authorities are calling a plot to build a huge bomb. 

Mohammad Momin Khawaja, 27, who lives in the Ottawa suburb of Orleans and is a computer programmer for the federal Department of Foreign Affairs, was the first man charged under Canada's anti-terrorism act when he was arrested in Ottawa in March 2004.

Mohammad Momin Khawaja arrives at an Ottawa courthouse on May 3, 2004, under RCMP protection.
(Jonathan Hayward/ Canadian Press)

Khawaja, who was born and educated in Canada, is charged with participating in the activities of a British terrorist group and facilitating a terrorist activity.

The police raid on his house was part of a British-Canadian investigation in which nine men of Pakistani heritage were arrested. Khawaja was the only person arrested in Canada. 

The British court was told Monday that Khawaja flew to England in February 2004, where he allegedly met two of his co-accused and discussed the making of a huge bomb.

The Crown played audio tapes recorded by British police that purport to show that Khawaja showed his co-accused how to make a detonator for a remote bomb. Khawaja reportedly said that he had built a detonator that looked like a mobile telephone with a transmitter and up to five receivers.

"If we can get five volts, it's not a problem," he allegedly said. "So the receiver, it basically gets the signal when you press the button on the transmitter. If you have detonator [and] wires hooked up.  That will send the charge down the line to whatever. I think at one to two kilometres, you should be fine."

Khawaja reportedly went on to say that the mobile telephone uses an FM signal that would be next to impossible for police to block.

"They use a lot of it themselves," he reportedly said.  The 'they' apparently referred to police and government authorities in London.