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since Wed, 26 Dec 2007 20:04:17.
GREG BLUESTEIN, Associated Press Writer
Posted: August 12, 2009
ATLANTA -- A 23-year-old Georgia man was convicted Wednesday of aiding terrorist groups by sending videotapes of U.S. landmarks overseas and plotting to support "violent jihad" after a federal jury rejected his arguments that it was empty talk.
The jury found Ehsanul Islam Sadequee guilty of all four charges he faced after about five hours of deliberations. The charges carry a maximum penalty of 60 years in prison and his sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 15.
Authorities say Sadequee never posed an imminent threat to the U.S, but he took concrete steps to bolster terrorists when he sent the videos overseas and tried to aid a Pakistani-based terror group while on a trip to Bangladesh.
Sadequee, who stared silently as the verdict was read, is the second Georgia terror suspect to be convicted in the last two months. A judge convicted Sadequee's friend, Syed Haris Ahmed, in June on one count of conspiring to support terrorism in the U.S. and abroad.
Sadequee's relatives, who regularly packed the courtroom during the weeklong trial, said the conviction was an example of overzealous prosecution in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Sadequee's sister Sonali said she was "absolutely disappointed" by the jury's decision.
"What's most frustrating to see that the post-Sept. 11 climate, even though Obama has communicated there's going to be a shift, it hasn't really gone down to the general understanding of the community and social attitudes," she said.
But federal authorities say it was a reminder that those who actively seek to aid terror groups may be lurking within the U.S. They said they had little choice but to snuff out a potential plot before it came to fruition. "We can wait until something happens, or until things get very close to happening," U.S. Attorney David Nahmias said. "I think we all learned on Sept. 11, 2001, that we don't wait anymore."
Sadequee, who represented himself at trial, dismissed his online discussions about jihad as boastful chatter from a group of young men "who type faster than they think." He said he never considered following through on it. "We were immature young guys who had imaginations running wild," Sadequee told jurors in his closing arguments Tuesday. "But I was not then, and am not now, a terrorist."
Prosecutors, however, depicted Sadequee as a dangerous terrorist wannabe who needed to be stopped before he took action. Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert McBurney said authorities had "overwhelming" evidence that Sadequee took concrete steps to aid terror organizations.
"The goal is to catch a terrorist before he flies a plane into the building, to stop a terrorist before he gets too far," McBurney said. "No government is obligated to wait until the fuse is lit."
Authorities said Sadequee first sought to join the Taliban in December 2001 and that he spent the next few years meeting other supporters as he delved deeper into "radical" online forums devoted to violent jihad.
One was Ahmed, a former Georgia Tech student who faces a 15-year-prison sentence. Authorities say the two took a bus to Toronto in March 2005 and met with at least three other subjects of a federal investigation to discuss possible attack targets.
A month later, the pair drove Ahmed's pickup truck to Washington and shot 62 choppy clips of U.S. landmarks such as the U.S. Capitol and lesser-known sites, including a fuel depot and a Masonic Temple in northern Virginia, authorities said. One of the videos, which was played for jurors last week, showed the two driving by the Pentagon as Sadequee said: "This is where our brothers attacked the Pentagon."
Sadequee sent at least two of the clips to an overseas contact days after he returned, authorities said, disguising them as "jimmy's 13th birthday party" and "volleyball contest." McBurney told jurors the videos were designed to send a chilling message: "We are in your backyard." But Sadequee countered: "Any real terrorist would probably go to Google Earth to see live images."
Sadequee, who is originally from Virginia and has family in the Atlanta area, then traveled to Bangladesh in August 2005, where he soon got married. Authorities said he made the trip with a more fiendish mission in mind: To try to link up with terror groups.
They say he communicated with Ahmed and other suspected terrorists, including Mirsad Bektasevic, a Balkan-born Swede who was convicted in 2007 of planning to blow up a European target to force the pullout of foreign troops from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Attorney Don Samuel, who was first appointed to represent Sadequee and offered him advice throughout the trial, said the likely turning point for jurors was seeing videos of bomb belts and explosives found when Bektasevic was arrested.
"Jurors probably thought seeing that it was more than just talk, even though for Shifa it was," he said, using Sadequee's nickname. "It changed the whole atmosphere of the trial."
The verdict marked the end of an often bewildering six days of testimony as Sadequee discovered the perils of representing himself in federal court. "It's not as easy as you see in 'Law & Order,'" he told jurors on Tuesday.
He asked witnesses about the relationship between Superman and the antichrist and probed them on the role of Freemasons. He also urged FBI agents to interpret his e-mail statements, and they gladly obliged.
The members of the jury -- a panel of nine men and three women -- seemed relieved the trial was over. One female juror who would not give her name said she was ready to get back to her life. "We're thankful justice has been served," she said.
Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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A Report and Analysis on the Shifa case in Atlanta, GA
El-Hajj Mauri' Saalakhan
THE PEACE AND JUSTICE FOUNDATION
Sha'ban 1430 AH (August 14, 20090)
Assalaamu Alaikum
(Greetings of Peace):
This is coming to our readers from greater metropolitan Birmingham, Alabama, where I had the pleasure of serving as guest khatib at a large, attractive Islamic Center for jumah this afternoon - and where I will be doing a follow-up lecture later this evening (insha'Allah).
As many of our readers are aware that my primary reason for being in the south at this time is due to the case involving Ehsanul Islam Sadequee (a/k/a Shifa), a good number of you have been desirous of additional information on this troubling case, in the wake of Shifa's recent conviction. What follows is a fairly representative AP report on the trial and its outcome. Please see my closing commentary at the end.
El-Hajj Mauri' Saalakhan
The Major Elements of this Case
Shifa is an American-born citizen with parents who hail from Bangladesh. He was only 19 years of age, married for about two weeks, when he was taken into custody by Bangladeshi authorities and handed over to U.S. authorities (per America's request).
He was held for more than three years in solitary confinement before he was placed on trial.
His co-defendant in the case, Syed Haris Ahmed, had a bench trial (with a judge and no jury) and was convicted in June of this year on one count. As a result of a pre-trial arrangement he faces a maximum sentence of 15 years at sentencing, and testified for the prosecution in Shifa's trial.
The government concedes that neither defendant ever posed an imminent threat" to the United States of America or any other country!
The defendants were prosecuted for speech (and thought crimes), and for taking non-imminent threat actions which the government interpreted as being in support of that threatening speech. (It was another case of preemptive prosecution.)
Shifa chose to represent himself (pro-se) because he wanted the jury to be able to really see him as an individual, as a human being, and hear from him in his own words. I also believe (surely ALLAH knows best) part of that decision was rooted in a justifiable distrust for the system itself.
The so-called conspirators were young men who wanted to DO something about the carnage taking place in the Muslim world; and as a result of their legitimate hurt, anger and frustration with a moribund status quo, began to romanticize jihad.
The government argued that Shifa first "sought to join the Taliban" in 2001, when he would have been all of 15 years old!
Shifa was connected to another preemptive prosecution in Europe; and sensationalistic video allegedly taken from that case was used to prejudice the jury in the Georgia case(s) – even though the government conceded that there was never an imminent threat posed by the Georgia defendants.
Summary conclusion
There are a number of important lessons that should be extracted from this case. The first is that, Post 9/11, with this newly crafted, still evolving legal monstrosity called terrorism conspiracy law, a person CAN BE PROSECUTED FOR WHAT THEY SAY!
Another important point is that the U.S Government has been engaged (for many years now) in a very intensive, well organized and well funded campaign of RELIGIOUS PROFILING against the Muslim community (both here and abroad)!
There is a critical need for Islamic masajid and centers throughout America to open up these places of worship for the type of discussion and constructive debate (around potentially hotbed "political" issues) that is long overdue. Something happened at Masjid Al-Faruq (a/k/a the 14th St. Mosque) in Atlanta, Georgia, yesterday which is indicative of the problem we have in the Muslim community throughout America.
A representative of the masjid had an almost hysterical reaction when he learned that a press conference on Shifa's conviction was about to take place on the PUBLIC SIDEWALK directly outside of the masjid!
(This reminded me of an equally hysterical reaction that I personally experienced at a large Islamic center in Richardson, Texas, right after the sentencing in the Holy Land Foundation case.)
As long as much of the Muslim establishment in America continues to pursue a counterproductive policy of NO POLITICS in the masjid – with the exception of the local secular-oriented politicos who regularly run for office, the presidential campaigns which take place every four years, the "interfaith initiatives which more often than not result in large well endowed communities remaining painfully silent and embarrassingly inactive on the GENOCIDE taking place in Occupied Palestine, and the homeland security politicos who are accorded red carpet treatment in the "Houses of ALLAH" (as they continue to piss in our faces and insist that it's only rain) – we will continue to experience these problems with many of our youth.
Unless and until we can provide a safe alternative for concerned Muslim youth to discuss and debate the politically charged issues of the day, and receive clear guidance on how they can more effectively push back within the limits of the law, without placing themselves, their families and their communities at risk, they will continue to fall prey to their own weak and naïve tendencies, and/or the predators which are always lurking in the shadows waiting to pounce.
Stop being afraid, "Muslim leaders," and seize the time!
MS
A little information tidbit: Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert McBurney, who appeared to lead the prosecution of this Georgia "conspiracy" case, is the same prosecutor who was involved in the case of Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (the former H. Rap Brown).
To be continued…
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