Police say two Canadians who were inspired by Al Qaeda and adopted techniques similar to those used by the Boston Marathon bombers have been arrested in a plot to attack the British Columbia legislature on Canada Day.

RCMP national security teams on the West Coast have been tracking John Stewart Nuttall, originally from Victoria, and Amanda Marie Korody, a native of St. Catharines, Ont., since February and swooped in to make an arrest in Abbotsford, B.C., on Monday.

On display for reporters at a press conference Tuesday were pictures of three pressure cooker devices seized in the arrest. One contained rusty nails, while the others were allegedly going to be filled with nuts, bolts, nails and washers. The method for making an improvised bomb was popularized by Islamist militants fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan and allegedly employed to deadly effect near the finish line of the Boston Marathon in May.

The two suspects are facing charges of facilitating a terrorist activity, making or possessing an explosive device, and conspiracy.

Police said there is no evidence of contact or assistance from any foreign terror groups. A plot earlier this year to derail a Via Rail passenger train between Toronto and New York was said to have received support from Al Qaeda in Iran.

Tom Morino, a lawyer who has represented Nuttall in numerous previous run-ins with the law, said Nuttall had converted to Islam “a number of years ago”

He did not know whether Korody was also Muslim, but described her as a “very, very quiet young lady who appeared very devoted to their relationship.”

An acquaintance of Korody’s from high school said she believed Korody converted to Islam about three years ago.

The Victoria bomb plot, police say, was conceived and carried out entirely unassisted.

“This self-radicalized behaviour was intended to create maximum impact and harm to Canadian citizens at the B.C. legislature on a national holiday,” said RCMP Assistant Commissioner Wayne Rideout.

Police said their probe began as a result of a tip they received from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Rideout said the pair charged in the case allegedly took steps to learn how to produce “explosive devices designed to cause injury and death” and discussed a number of possible targets and techniques. But police said there was no imminent harm to the public.

“In order to ensure public safety, we employed a variety of complex investigative and covert techniques to control any opportunity the suspects had to commit harm,” Rideout said. “These devices were completely under our control. They were inert, and at no time represented a threat to public safety.”

Korody, who is believed to be 30 years old, is the adopted daughter of a St. Catharines dentist, relatives told the Star. But she moved out West about a decade ago and has had little contact with her father, mother and sister, who live in New York.

“We used to be really close growing up, then she just kind of like moved out, moved across the country,” said Josh Korody, a cousin. “She mentioned that she was doing music again, and she said that she had married this guy Johnny, and I don’t know if she actually told her parents about that or not.”

A talent for singing, playing guitar and painting, as well as her reputation as “the cool cousin” who knew all the best music, eventually gave way to drugs and the troubles that often come along with them, Josh Korody said.

“I’ve only gotten a couple of emails from her in the past while. The last time that I talked to her, she kind of asked me for money, which really bummed me out. So I haven’t really talked to her since.”

Nuttall, has a string of assault, theft and weapons charges going back to 1996. Local newspaper stories described him as a violent thug and debt collector who once kicked a victim so hard he had to have a kidney removed.

In a 2003 sentencing hearing for a robbery conviction, court heard that Nuttall was a reformed hard-core drug addict who assaulted a businessman on the head with a rock and stole his briefcase, all the while hallucinating that someone was trying to harm his unnamed girlfriend.

Nuttall also appeared to have been musical, though were no Kiwanis music festival ribbons the likes of which Korody won in 1999.

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Nuttall’s tastes were for heavy metal. He posted four poor-quality recordings on a music website along with a picture of himself posing with four guitars. The undated songs include titles such as “The End of the World,” and “In League With Satan,” with the lyrics: “We are possessed by all that is evil, The death of your god we demand, We spit at the virgin you worship, And sit at Lord Satan’s Left Hand.”

In a Facebook post Tuesday, Victoria-based band Lust Boys identified Nuttall — whom they called Johnny Blade — as the group’s ex-guitarist.

In online postings, Nuttall identified himself as belonging to a band called No World Order, a Muslim punk band that was created in Victoria but moved to the Surrey, B.C., area in mid-August, 2011.

“I’m a Muslim punk from Victoria, Guitarist for N.W.O . . . Looking for other Muslim punks to meet InshallAllah,” Nuttall wrote.

The band was looking for a drummer — “We are not adverse (sic) to you if you aren’t Moslim, even if you are just curious. We are just into hardcore and looking for like-minded musicians especially drummers lol.”

Morino said he had spoken to both suspects by phone Monday, but could not discuss what they had told him.

He urged law enforcement to avoid “hyperbole and the use of terms like Al Qaeda, terrorism and so forth,” and let the facts speak for themselves.

“I religiously — and I do not use that as a pun — cling to the views of presumption of innocence and allowing the criminal justice system to unfold in the natural course of time,” Morino said.

B.C. Premier Christy Clark was alerted to the impending arrests shortly before they were carried out on Monday.

“The allegations we’ve learned of are that on Canada Day, the very institution behind me, that is at the heart of our democratic process here in British Columbia, the very symbol of our values . . . was targeted,” Clark said in front of the legislature after the police news conference Tuesday.

She added: “Let me say this about those who would resort to terror: You will not succeed.”