A defense lawyer for one of five men accused of plotting to attack soldiers on Fort Dix blasted the government's claims that the a trip to Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains included preparations for an terrorist attack.
During closing arguments Wednesday in the men's trial, attorney Michael Huff told jurors that the trip wasn't meant as jihadist training.
"The Poconos in this case was a vacation and not a training," Michael Huff told jurors during the second day of summations in the case, which followed 26 days of testimony.
The five defendants -- all foreign-born Muslims who lived for years in the Philadelphia suburb of Cherry Hill -- are charged with conspiring to kill military personnel and attempted murder. Four of them also face weapons charges. They face life in prison if convicted.
The government has portrayed the case as an example of law enforcers averting a possible tragedy. There was no attack before the men were arrested in May 2007.
Defense lawyers argue that the men weren't seriously planning anything and say two paid FBI informants prodded them toward action.
It was a video from the group's January 2006 Poconos trip that tipped off authorities and ultimately led to the their trial.
A Circuit City employee told police when the men asked him to transfer a video of the trip to DVD. The clerk was alarmed to see part of the movie included the men firing weapons and shouting "Allah Akbar," Arabic for "God is great."
Four of the five suspects returned to the mountains in February 2007.
What happened there is one of the main disputes in the trial -- and one of the questions that the jury might have to sort out when deliberations begin late Tuesday or Wednesday.
In his closing arguments Monday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Hammer reiterated the government's contention that the men traveled to the mountains for training.
Evidence shows that the men went to gun stores to look for weapons, fired guns at a firing range, played paintball and watched videos while there.
The government contends that balloons the men used as targets were to simulate human heads and the paintball games were meant as practice for waging a holy war. Jurors heard that one night, the men watched jihadist videos and some of them laughed at them, according to prosecutors.
Huff, who represents Dritan Duka, said the government has it wrong. He reminded the jury of eight women and four men of times during secret recordings made by FBI informants that the men were heard referring to paintball as fun.
He also suggested that one of the informants, Mahmoud Omar, was the one who first raised the notion that the sport could be used as training.
Further, he said, the al-Qaeda propaganda videos the men watched took up only one hour of the week they spent in the Poconos. He also pointed to testimony about other movies they watched, such as an Eddie Murphy concert film.
And Huff reminded jurors of testimony from a Philadelphia police officer that one of the suspects, Serdar Tatar, invited him on to go with his friends to the shooting range. Neither the officer nor Tatar ended up making the trip.
But it was still relevant, Huff said.
"Are you going to invite a police officer to your jihad training party?" he asked jurors.
A government lawyer will be able to respond before jurors, who will be sequestered during deliberations, get the case.
