A Canadian man has been found guilty of being part of being part of a terrorist plot to behead the Prime Minister in the country's first terrorist conviction under its new anti-terrorism laws.

The young man and 17 other group members, known as the Toronto 18 stand accused of plotting to truck bomb nuclear power plants and a building housing Canada's spy service.

The young man's mother wept in the back of the court as Superior Court Justice John Sproat, convicting him, ruled that evidence of a terrorist group was "overwhelming."

Seven of those arrested have since had their charges either withdrawn, or stayed. The trials of 10 adults, including the alleged ringleaders, have yet to begin.

The young man, who cannot be named because he was 17 when he was arrested in 2006, was the first to go on trial. His laywer had argued that the plot was a "jihadi fantasy" and that his client knew nothing about it.

The prosecution accused him of attending a training camp where he participated in military exercises and firearms training and that he knowingly participated in a potentially deadly conspiracy.

Judge Sproat rejected the defence argument that the defendant, who faces a 10 year sentence, knew nothing about the plot.

"He clearly understood the camp was for terrorist purposes," he said.

However the prosecution's star witness, Mubin Shaikh, said after the trial the youth should not have been found guilty.

Mr Shaikh, who had infiltrated and spied on the alleged terror cell members before their arrests said the youth was only "a naive Moslem kid who fell into the wrong circle of Moslem kids.

"I don't believe he's a terrorist," he said.

Times Recommends

• Please help: maimed children of war want their lives back
• Cabal seizes diamond riches to buy power
• White House gatecrashers got to the president