Briefly

CANADA

’Toronto 18’ member pleads guilty

OTTAWA | A Canadian Muslim has pleaded guilty to plotting to storm Canada’s Parliament and bomb a nuclear facility, a stock exchange and other targets, the court said Monday.

Fahim Ahmad, 25, was charged with participating in a terrorist group — the so-called Toronto 18, arrested during a police sting operation in 2006 — and instructing others to carry out terrorist activities.

He changed his plea to guilty halfway through his trial, a court official said. The trial of two co-defendants — the last to be prosecuted in the case — would continue.

The jury reportedly heard that Ahmad was the ringleader of the terror cell and held two training camps in the Canadian outback to assess his recruits’ abilities.

The conspiracy was aimed at provoking Canadian withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The Toronto 18 purportedly planned to use fertilizer explosives packed in rented trucks to bomb the Toronto Stock Exchange, Canada’s spy-agency offices, a military base, Ontario’s power grid and a nuclear station.

Ahmad is the ninth person to be convicted in the terror plot. Charges were dropped against seven others. He is to be sentenced on June 15.

HAITI

Protesters demand president’s ouster

PORT-AU-PRINCE | Police fired tear gas outside the ruins of Haiti’s national palace Monday to control about 2,000 demonstrators calling for President Rene Preval’s resignation in the largest political protest since the Jan. 12 earthquake.

Trucks filled with riot police rolled behind the protesters as they jogged toward the palace chanting insults at Mr. Preval, who has been criticized for his low profile following the quake and for purportedly using the destruction as a pretext to stay in office beyond his term.

Police shot into the air Monday as people in the crowd threw rocks. Other shots also were fired, but it was not clear by whom. At least one person near the protest was wounded by a bullet, police spokesman Frantz Lerebours said.

There was an anti-Preval demonstration last week in the coastal town of Jacmel, but this was the strongest showing of opposition to the Haitian leader since the catastrophe.

Mr. Preval announced last week that he would stay in office up to three months past the end of his term, on Feb. 7, if the presidential election is delayed. Officials are struggling to hold the election as scheduled this fall. The quake destroyed the election agency’s headquarters and records and killed or displaced about 1.6 million voters.

CANADA

U.S. seeks extradition of ’Prince of Pot’

VANCOUVER | The attorney for Canada’s so-called Prince of Pot said Monday that his client has been ordered extradited to the United States.

Marc Emery has sold millions of marijuana seeds around the world by mail over the past decade, drawing the attention of U.S. drug officials, who want him extradited to Seattle.

Mr. Emery’s attorney, Kirk Tousaw, said Canadian Minister of Justice Rob Nicholson signed off on his extradition shortly after the marijuana advocate surrendered to authorities on Monday.

The justice minister’s spokeswoman, Carole Saindon, would not comment on the order or the timing of his surrender, saying only that Mr. Emery has the option of a court appeal of the order.

The department said Mr. Emery’s extradition was sought on charges of conspiracy to manufacture marijuana, conspiracy to distribute marijuana and conspiracy to engage in money laundering.

Mr. Emery reached a plea deal with U.S. prosecutors last year, agreeing to plead guilty to conspiracy to manufacture marijuana in return for a sentence of five years in prison.

• From wire dispatches and staff reports