Domestic+Terrorism


 * Domestic Terror Cases**

December 23, 2008 A jury today convicted five men of plotting an attack on military personnel at Ft. Dix in New Jersey.After deliberating six days, a federal jury in New Jersey convicts the men -- all foreign-born Muslims -- of conspiring to kill military personnel but acquits them of attempted murder.

The defendants, born outside the United States but longtime residents of the Philadelphia suburb of Cherry Hill, N.J., could face life in prison for their conviction on federal charges of conspiring to kill military personnel. Although investigators said the men, all Muslims, were inspired by Osama bin Laden, there were no known connections to any foreign terror group.

The jury, which deliberated about 38 hours over six days in Camden, N.J., acquitted all members of the group of attempted murder.

"This has been one of the most difficult things that we have ever had to do," the jury said in a statement read in court. "During these last six days we have held the fate of these five defendants in our hands and we have not reached our conclusions lightly," the statement said. The case is one of a series of trials involving Muslims in the wake of the 2001 terror attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. The government has secured some notable guilty pleas, including from Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui and also from Richard Reid, who in December 2001 tried to blow up a trans-Atlantic jetliner with a shoe bomb.

But after a prosecutor was accused of withholding evidence, a case against four men in Michigan failed. And there has been an acquittal and mistrial in a case in Miami against seven men accused of plotting to blow up Chicago's Sears Tower.

"Today's verdicts underscore the need for continued vigilance against homegrown terror threats," said Patrick Rowan, assistant U.S. attorney general for national security. "The word should go out to any other would-be terrorists of the homegrown variety that the United States will find you, infiltrate your group, prosecute you and send you to a federal prison for a very long time."

In the current case, defense lawyers argued that the plot against Ft. Dix was all talk and that the men were goaded by two paid FBI informants. Much of the testimony was focused on the informants and hundreds of hours of recordings.

The men convicted are Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer, 23, born in Jordan, a taxi driver and part-time construction worker; Dritan "Tony" Duka, 30, born in the former Yugoslavia and the operator of a roofing business; Eljvir Duka, 25, born in the former Yugoslavia and an operator of a roofing business; Shain Duka, 27, born in the former Yugoslavia and a roofer; and Serdar Tatar, 25, an assistant manager of a convenience store in Philadelphia.

The Dukas are illegal immigrants, Shnewer is a U.S. citizen and Tatar is a legal resident.

A sixth man, who was arrested and charged only with gun offenses, pleaded guilty earlier.

U.S. District Judge Robert B. Kugler, who presided over the 12-week trial, scheduled sentencing of the three Duka brothers for April 22. Shnewer and Tatar are to be sentenced April 23.

The case began when Brian Morgenstern, a clerk at a Circuit City store contacted law enforcement after two men brought him a videotape to transfer to DVD in January 2006.

He said the tape showed 10 men at a firing range with what he thought were fully automatic rifles. Authorities have said the men could be heard on the tape chanting "God is Great" in Arabic.

Among the other terror cases the government has prosecuted since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks:

In 2002, the U.S. charged the "Lackawanna Six," U.S. citizens of Yemeni descent living near Buffalo, N.Y., with having attended an Al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan in the months before the Sept. 11 attacks. The six pleaded guilty in 2003 to providing material support to a terrorist organization.

In 2003, Iyman Faris of Columbus, Ohio, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Pakistan, pleaded guilty to supporting Al Qaeda. He was accused of planning to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge and sentenced to 20 years.

In August 2004, U.S. authorities said they had uncovered a plot to attack the New York Stock Exchange and other financial institutions in New York, Washington and Newark, N.J. Eventually, five men pleaded guilty in London.

In the summer of 2005, a Pakistani immigrant and his American-born son in Lodi, Calif., were arrested for allegedly lying to the FBI about the younger man's training at a camp in Pakistan. Hamid Hayat, the son, was found guilty of supporting terrorism and lying to the FBI. He is seeking a new trial. The case against Umer Hayat, the father, ended in a mistrial; he later pleaded guilty to lying to a customs agent about trying to carry $28,000 into Pakistan.

Four California men, one the founder of a radical Islamic prison group, were indicted in 2005 for allegedly conspiring to attack Los Angeles-area military bases, synagogues and other targets. The men have pleaded not guilty.