05-25-2006, 09:11 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->May 25, 12:38 AM EDT
Jury convicts Pakistani loner in Manhattan bomb plot
By TOM HAYS
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) -- It was June 2004 when Shahawar Matin Siraj reached the end of his rope.
Inside the Islamic bookstore where he worked, Siraj unwittingly recounted for a paid police informant rumors among radicals that U.S. soldiers were sexually abusing Iraqi girls.
"That was enough for me," the Pakistani immigrant said in one of a series of secretly recorded conversations played at a trial in federal court. "I'm ready to do anything."
What Siraj settled on doing was bombing one of Manhattan's busiest subway stations - a scheme that resulted in his conviction Wednesday on federal conspiracy charges.
A jury in Brooklyn deliberated two days before reaching the guilty verdict in a case that cast a spotlight on how the New York Police Department has sought to monitor radical Muslims in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Siraj faces up to life in prison at sentencing Oct. 5, though the term could be much shorter under sentencing guidelines.
The 23-year-old high school dropout - who had rejected a plea deal that would have put him behind bars for 10 years - listened to the verdict with downcast eyes.
Afterward, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly issued a statement hailing the outcome as "an important milestone in safeguarding New York against terrorist plotters whether homegrown or foreign."
Siraj's attorney, Martin Stolar, called such claims misleading.
"This is not somebody who is a terrorist," he told reporters outside court. "What they should worry about are sleeper cells, not Matin Siraj."
The defense had sought to portray Siraj as an impressionable simpleton - his own lawyer referred to him as "not the brightest bulb in the chandelier" - who was lured into a phony plot. Prosecutors argued that the defendant was both the initiator and mastermind of a serious threat.
Siraj and another man suspected in the plot, James Elshafay, were arrested on the eve of the 2004 Republican National Convention carrying crude diagrams of their target - the subway station in Herald Square, a dense shopping district that includes Macy's flagship department store. Elshafay immediately agreed to cooperate with the government.
Authorities said Siraj had no affiliation with known terrorist organizations. Instead, he was a relative loner whose anti-American rants caught the attention of the informant, Osama Eldawoody, and an undercover police officer.
Eldawoody, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Egypt, and the Bangladesh-born undercover officer - who both testified for the government - had been assigned by the NYPD to identify and track Islamic extremists in the city's Muslim neighborhoods following the 2001 destruction of the World Trade Center.
The undercover officer, who testified using an alias, described being plucked straight out of the police academy in 2003 and given orders to become a "walking camera" among Muslims. He recalled a conversation on the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in which Siraj "complimented" Osama bin Laden.
"He said he was a talented brother and a great planner and that he hoped bin Laden planned something big for America," the officer said.
Eldawoody, meanwhile, wore a wire and assumed the role of an accomplice, assuring Siraj that any plan he concocted would have the backing of a fictitious faction called The Brotherhood. On tape, Siraj was heard musing about possibly destroying the Verrazano-Narrows and three other bridges serving Staten Island or killing Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
Testifying in his own defense last week, Siraj said he never had a violent thought before he fell under the spell of the 50-year-old Eldawoody. He said the older man became a mentor and instructed him that there was a fatwa, or religious edict, permitting the killing of U.S. soldiers and law enforcement agents.
Eldawoody had himself talked about "blowing up the buildings and blowing up the Wall Street places," the defendant said. He admitted taking steps to attack the subway station, but only after the informant inflamed him by showing him photos of prisoners being abused at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
"I used to just listen to him, but I never said 'yes, I was going to do it,' or 'no' until the Abu Ghraib thing came up," he said.
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Jury convicts Pakistani loner in Manhattan bomb plot
By TOM HAYS
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) -- It was June 2004 when Shahawar Matin Siraj reached the end of his rope.
Inside the Islamic bookstore where he worked, Siraj unwittingly recounted for a paid police informant rumors among radicals that U.S. soldiers were sexually abusing Iraqi girls.
"That was enough for me," the Pakistani immigrant said in one of a series of secretly recorded conversations played at a trial in federal court. "I'm ready to do anything."
What Siraj settled on doing was bombing one of Manhattan's busiest subway stations - a scheme that resulted in his conviction Wednesday on federal conspiracy charges.
A jury in Brooklyn deliberated two days before reaching the guilty verdict in a case that cast a spotlight on how the New York Police Department has sought to monitor radical Muslims in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Siraj faces up to life in prison at sentencing Oct. 5, though the term could be much shorter under sentencing guidelines.
The 23-year-old high school dropout - who had rejected a plea deal that would have put him behind bars for 10 years - listened to the verdict with downcast eyes.
Afterward, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly issued a statement hailing the outcome as "an important milestone in safeguarding New York against terrorist plotters whether homegrown or foreign."
Siraj's attorney, Martin Stolar, called such claims misleading.
"This is not somebody who is a terrorist," he told reporters outside court. "What they should worry about are sleeper cells, not Matin Siraj."
The defense had sought to portray Siraj as an impressionable simpleton - his own lawyer referred to him as "not the brightest bulb in the chandelier" - who was lured into a phony plot. Prosecutors argued that the defendant was both the initiator and mastermind of a serious threat.
Siraj and another man suspected in the plot, James Elshafay, were arrested on the eve of the 2004 Republican National Convention carrying crude diagrams of their target - the subway station in Herald Square, a dense shopping district that includes Macy's flagship department store. Elshafay immediately agreed to cooperate with the government.
Authorities said Siraj had no affiliation with known terrorist organizations. Instead, he was a relative loner whose anti-American rants caught the attention of the informant, Osama Eldawoody, and an undercover police officer.
Eldawoody, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Egypt, and the Bangladesh-born undercover officer - who both testified for the government - had been assigned by the NYPD to identify and track Islamic extremists in the city's Muslim neighborhoods following the 2001 destruction of the World Trade Center.
The undercover officer, who testified using an alias, described being plucked straight out of the police academy in 2003 and given orders to become a "walking camera" among Muslims. He recalled a conversation on the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in which Siraj "complimented" Osama bin Laden.
"He said he was a talented brother and a great planner and that he hoped bin Laden planned something big for America," the officer said.
Eldawoody, meanwhile, wore a wire and assumed the role of an accomplice, assuring Siraj that any plan he concocted would have the backing of a fictitious faction called The Brotherhood. On tape, Siraj was heard musing about possibly destroying the Verrazano-Narrows and three other bridges serving Staten Island or killing Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
Testifying in his own defense last week, Siraj said he never had a violent thought before he fell under the spell of the 50-year-old Eldawoody. He said the older man became a mentor and instructed him that there was a fatwa, or religious edict, permitting the killing of U.S. soldiers and law enforcement agents.
Eldawoody had himself talked about "blowing up the buildings and blowing up the Wall Street places," the defendant said. He admitted taking steps to attack the subway station, but only after the informant inflamed him by showing him photos of prisoners being abused at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
"I used to just listen to him, but I never said 'yes, I was going to do it,' or 'no' until the Abu Ghraib thing came up," he said.
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