Five Muslim immigrants were found guilty Monday of conspiring to massacre U.S. soldiers at Fort Dix in a case the government said demonstrated its post-Sept. 11 determination to stop terrorist attacks in the planning stages.
The men, who lived in and around Philadelphia for years, were charged with conspiring to kill military personnel and attempted murder; four also faced weapons charges. All were acquitted on the attempted murder charges, and some were convicted on the weapons charges.
The men face up to life in prison when they are sentenced in April.
The government said after the men's arrest in 2007 that an attack was imminent and that the case underscored the dangers of terrorist plots hatched on U.S. soil. Although investigators said the men were inspired by Osama bin Laden, they were not accused of any ties to foreign terror groups.
Defense lawyers argued that the alleged plot was all talk -- that the men weren't seriously planning anything and that they were goaded by two paid FBI informants.
Faten Shnewer, the mother of suspect Mohamad Shnewer, said the informants should be sent to jail, not her son.
"They (the government informants) have to be in jail, not my son and his friends. It's not right, it's not justice," she said moments after the verdict was read.
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"They (the government) sent somebody to push him to say something; that's it," she said.
During the eight-week trial, the government relied heavily on information gathered by the informants, who infiltrated the group and secretly recorded hundreds of conversations.
Prosecutors said that the men bought several assault rifles supplied by the FBI and that they trekked to Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains to practice their shooting. The government also presented dozens of jihadist speeches and videos that the men supposedly used as inspiration.
During the eight-week trial, the government relied heavily on information gathered by the informants, who infiltrated the group and secretly recorded hundreds of conversations.
Prosecutors said the men bought several assault rifles supplied by the FBI and that they trekked to Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains to practice their shooting. The government also presented dozens of jihadist speeches and videos that the men supposedly used as inspiration.
Convicted were: Jordanian-born cab driver Mohamad Shnewer; Turkish-born convenience store clerk Serdar Tatar; and brothers Dritan, Eljvir and Shain Duka, ethnic Albanians from the former Yugoslavia, who had a roofing business.
A sixth man arrested and charged only with gun offenses pleaded guilty earlier.
The government has had a mixed record on terrorism prosecutions since Sept. 11. It won guilty pleas from Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, Richard Reid, who tried to blow up a trans-Atlantic jetliner with a shoe bomb, and the Lackawanna Six, a terrorist cell outside Buffalo, N.Y. And it convicted Jose Padilla of plotting terrorist attacks.
But a case against four men in Michigan fell apart after a federal prosecutor was accused of withholding evidence. And a case in Miami against seven men accused of plotting to blow up Chicago's Sears Tower has produced one acquittal and two mistrials.
Prosecutors in the Fort Dix case said the group chose the Army post because one of the defendants was familiar with it. His father's pizza shop delivered to the New Jersey base, which is 25 miles from Philadelphia and is used primarily to train reservists for duty in Iraq.
The group's objective was to kill "as many American soldiers as possible," according to prosecutors.
"I think they were in the last stage of planning," then-U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie said at the time of their arrest. "They had training, they had maps, and I think they were very close to moving on this."
He added: "This is what law enforcement is supposed to do in the post-9/11 era -- stay one step ahead of those who are attempting to cause harm to innocent American citizens."
But during the trial, prosecutors said the men were probably months away from an attack and did not necessarily have a specific plan.
The investigation began after a clerk at a Circuit City store told the FBI that some customers had asked him to transfer onto DVD some video footage of them firing assault weapons and screaming about jihad.
The FBI asked two informants -- both foreign-born men who entered the U.S. illegally and had criminal records -- to befriend the suspects. Both informants were paid and were offered help obtaining legal resident status.
During the trial, federal prosecutor William Fitzpatrick defended the government's handling of the case. "The FBI investigates crime on the front end. They don't want to have to do it on the back end," he told the jury.
None of the five defendants testified.
The jury, which was sequestered, spent about 38 hours deliberating over the past six days.
Jurors didn't want to speak to the media after the verdict was read, but had the judge read a statement on their behalf. It said, in part: "This has been one of the most difficult things that we have ever had to do."
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On The Net:
U.S. District Court page with evidence from trial: http://www.njd.uscourts.gov/FortDixTrial/index.html
