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“We the jury have reached an impasse in our deliberations,” the jury said in a note passed to Justice Code.

After a brief conference with the Crown and Mr. Jaser’s lawyer, Justice Code urged the jury to try again for unanimity. He told them it was “not mandatory” but “obviously desirable” that they agree on a verdict and then sent them back to deliberate once more.

It was the latest twist in a long trial not short of turns, one that featured weeks of at times bizarre recordings made by an undercover FBI agent and frequent interjections from Mr. Esseghaier on the supremacy of God.

Mr. Esseghaier and Mr. Jaser are accused of conspiring to derail a passenger train in southern Ontario at the behest and for the benefit of a terrorist group. Mr. Jaser pleaded not guilty. Mr. Esseghaier refused to enter a plea or participate in the trial. A not guilty plea was entered on his behalf.

The jury’s announcement of an impasse came hours after Justice Code offered them fresh instructions on the minutia of conspiracy law. To find either man guilty he told the jury Wednesday morning, they would have to find they “genuinely meant” to derail the train and weren’t “feigning such an intention while having some other intention such as making money.”

The question that prompted that charge seemed to indicate that the at least some of the jurors were undecided on Mr. Jaser’s fate. Mr. Jaser’s lawyer, John Norris, did not present a defence. But in his closing argument he told the jury that his client was a con man posing as a terrorist. “What was it he wanted?” he said. “Money.”

The trial proper ended last week; jurors have been sequestered ever since, emerging only to ask questions of the judge or seek access to some of the many exhibits in the case.

Their deliberations continued Wednesday evening.