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Four months after he was arrested in Project Seashell, a national security investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Mr. Ansari got his first chance to answer the allegations this week as he was questioned at his admissibility hearing.

Federal authorities are claiming he is linked to a Pakistani terrorist group and he was recorded saying he had been sent to Canada on a “military mission.” But much of the questioning Wednesday concerned his firearms purchases.

‘They’re beautiful guns’

Over several months in 2012, he bought what officials described as a “surprising amount of firearms,” as well as up to 2,000 rounds of ammunition. Although Mr. Ansari did not have a permit to transport the weapons, he took them to a shooting range 260 kilometres away.

He testified he knew he needed a permit to transport them and had applied for one, but “got a bit hasty” and could no longer wait. “I like guns,” he said.

He denied police allegations he drove in a manner consistent with counter-surveillance.

Police seized his guns in August 2012 and, during the search of his home, found extremist materials, prompting the RCMP’s integrated national security enforcement team in Ontario to launch an investigation.

The probe concluded he was a member of a terrorist organization known as Ahle-Sunnat Wal Jamaat.

Mr. Ansari was arrested days after the deadly attacks on Canadian servicemen in Quebec and Ontario last October.

Although he immigrated to Canada in 2007, he is not a Canadian citizen and federal immigration officials are now trying to deport him.