<div><p>The convicted ring leader of the "Toronto 18" group that plotted to bomb several Canadian targets in 2006 apologized to Canadians for his actions in an open letter on Thursday.</p><p>"I deserve nothing less than your complete contempt," said Zakaria Amara, reading the letter at his sentencing hearing, according to Canadian media.</p><p>He pleaded guilty to terror offenses in October and awaits sentencing next week.</p><p>In his first public remarks, the 24-year-old mastermind of an Al-Qaeda inspired plot to bomb the Toronto Stock Exchange, Canada's spy agency offices and a military base using fertilizer explosives packed in rented trucks said his interpretation of Islam was "naive and gullible."</p><p>But his outlook changed over the three and a half years he spent in prison awaiting trial, with the help of fellow prisoners who challenged his hate-filled ideology, he said, in remarks cited by The Globe and Mail daily.</p><p>Amara, a Sunni Muslim, said he had befriended a Jewish inmate and a Shia Muslim who helped turn him around, as well as a banker who once worked in the Toronto Stock Exchange building, which was "ironic" since he had plotted to blow up the building, he told Justice Bruce Durno.</p><p>"When someone shows me I'm wrong," he said, "I'm willing to accept it."</p><p>Amara faces up to 20 years in prison, Canada's harshest-ever terror sentence.</p><p>One of his co-conspirators is currently on trial. Three others have pleaded guilty. One youth was convicted, charges against seven others were dropped and five still face trial.</p><img src="http://admatch-syndication.mochila.com/images/ad.gif?aid=66915941&bid=informcom" /></div><div id="copyright"><div>

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