Pro-Canada = terrorist according to DA

Hey,

I am not a lumber jack or a fur trader,

and I don’t live in an igloo or eat blubber or own a dog sled,

and I don’t know Jimmy, Sally or Suzie from Canada although I am certain they’re really really nice, uh.

I have a Prime Minister not a president.

I speak English and French, not American,

and I pronounce it about, not a boot.

I can proudly sew my country’s flag on my back pack,

I believe in peace keeping not policing, diversity not assimilation,

and that the beaver is a truly proud and noble animal.

…

I AM CANADIAN

from a Molson Commercial – IAM.ca

His name is Travis Biehn, a teenager transplanted from Newfoundland to Pennsylvania’s upper-middle-class Bucks County.

But two radically different portraits of the 17-year-old have emerged.

According to an aggressive media campaign abetted by the district attorney’s office in the Philadelphia area, he is a dangerous young man who was intent on blowing up his high school — because he didn’t like Americans.

To his family, friends, some classmates and his lawyer, he is a bright, techno-savvy prankster who is being tried publicly because he was proudly wearing an “I am Canadian” T-shirt when he was arrested.

One thing both sides can agree on — Biehn is in trouble and remains in custody, facing serious charges of making terroristic threats and possessing an incendiary device.

Police found some of the components that could be used to build a bomb in his bedroom, but not all the components for such a device, even though the district attorney is quoted as saying he had enough material to level the house.

It has raised the question as to whether Biehn is being accorded the same rights guaranteed an American or is being overly demonized because he is not from this country.

…

“They are clearly playing the anti-American card and trying him in the media,” said Biehn’s lawyer, William Goldman. He accused Bucks County District Attorney Diane Gibbons of breaching professional ethics by outlining the case and cooking up motives to local reporters before she received any information that could be used in Biehn’s defence.

The Central Bucks School District superintendent, Robert Laws, told reporters two students had stepped forward and told authorities the accused had bragged that he knew how to make bombs and planned to use them.

Gibbons also said the boy’s parents were unco-operative when their home was searched, and then told reporters in Pennsylvania: “He apparently has made it clear that he does not like America and that he would prefer to be in Canada.”

…

The anti-American link apparently stems from the T-shirt Biehn wore during a court appearance Friday, which sported a number of pro-Canadian slogans. Travis’ mother, a hockey player, brought the shirt back for her son after playing in a tournament in Canada.

The shirt carries slogans familiar to any Canadian. [see above for the contents of the tee]

…

What is wrong, Goldman said, is the anti-American card being played in the media by the county’s district attorney, resulting in a headline in The Allentown Morning Call which read: “DA: Teen bomb suspect hates U.S.”

He was wearing the T-shirt because he was wearing it under a dress shirt when taken into custody on Thursday evening, Goldman said.

“He was wearing the same outfit, right down to his drawers,” he said. “I respect the institution and when I go to court, I want to have my clients appropriately dressed. But when he’s apprehended at night, held overnight and marched into court by 8:15 a.m., there is no time to put a suit and tie on him.”

He also denied Biehn’s parents were unco-operative.

“We have a constitution in this country and it says you have the right to remain silent and you have the right to counsel. That’s all they did,” he said.

…

Laws told the Morning Call he understands the boy had made anti-American remarks to students.

Goldman said no such evidence has come to his attention.

Still, the newspaper reported on the weekend: “The 17-year-old Bucks County boy charged with having bomb-making equipment in his bedroom and threatening to blow up his school is a Canadian who hates Americans, prosecutors say.”

J.D. Mullane, a Bucks County Courier Times columnist, wrote: “It’s easy to mock school administrators who enforce extreme `zero tolerance’ policies by expelling kids caught with nail clippers and other `dangerous’ contraband.

“But few of us will ever deal with a character like Travis William Biehn.”

The county prosecutor says Biehn scrawled a bomb threat on a school bathroom wall on May 27, then drew a teacher’s attention to it.

However, Goldman says, the threat was washed off before police were called.

“We don’t know whether we’re dealing with a right-hander or a left-hander,” he said.