Jury hears terror suspect's dramatic takedown
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — At a darkened train station, the teenager and the purported jihadi pulled into a quiet lot where months of planning were to culminate in this: a plot to kill thousands at a Portland Christmas tree-lighting ceremony.
"You know what to do," the man said to the teenager, breathing heavily. "O Lord, O Lord, O Lord."
"Ready," the teenager said. "Alhamdulillah." Praise be to God.
They were 14 blocks northeast of this city's busy tree-lighting ceremony two years ago on Nov. 26, 2010. On Friday, they found themselves across a federal courtroom from each other where the man — who Mohamed Mohamud would learn was an undercover FBI agent — testified against the now 21-year-old and a jury listened to a recording of the moments leading up to his arrest.
The recording crackles as the FBI agent reads out numbers and the teenager punches them into his black disposable Nokia cellphone. He then apparently encounters an error.
"Dial it again," the man said, words that were in fact the cue for his fellow agents. Mohamud dialed again and waited for the explosion.
Instead: "FBI, FBI, FBI! Get down!"
The agent, whose cover name was "Hussein," had told Mohamud the number he dialed was connected to a cell phone that would set off six 55-gallon drums filled with diesel fuel in a van parked next to the tree-lighting. The explosion, "Hussein" told him, would destroy two blocks in any direction.
Mohamud's defense team doesn't dispute the sequence of events, nor that their client intended to kill thousands of people at the tree-lighting ceremony.
But the path by which he reached that point is the substance of the defense's claim that Mohamud was entrapped. The entrapment defense has been launched, unsuccessfully, in several post-9/11 terrorism sting operations like the one that targeted Mohamud.
He came to the FBI's attention, agents testified, when he kept up email contact with a Saudi Arabian man suspected by Interpol of terrorism.
Without the bureau's intervention, prosecutors say, the already-radicalized Mohamud would almost certainly have found a way to reach al-Qaida or one of its affiliates and commit an act of terror in the U.S.
Nonsense, Mohamud's attorneys said in opening statements and cross-examinations of prosecution witnesses. He was a 17-year-old when his emails were identified by the FBI, a teenager with grand but muddled ambitions of achieving some sort of fame in the Islamic world.
If anyone radicalized him, his attorneys attest, it was the undercover FBI agents who convinced him they were members of al-Qaida that had chosen him as a promising recruit.
Jurors had by Friday heard the details of the undercover sting operation and testimony from the men who led it. "Youssef," another undercover agent testifying under a pseudonym, said he encountered an angry young man at the outset of the sting on July 30, 2010.
But "Youssef" said he didn't believe Mohamud was truly capable of violence. Not yet. It wasn't until an August 2010 meeting in which Mohamud picked the tree-lighting ceremony as a target that "Youssef" became concerned that he was dealing with a potentially dangerous person.
After that meeting on Aug. 19, 2010, at least one agent or handler left his or her recorder running. The agents were heard saying it was "fantastic" that Mohamud had identified a "sexy" terrorist target, according to transcripts of the meeting quoted by Mohamud's defense team.
That plays in direct contrast to the FBI agents' assertions that they kept hoping Mohamud would turn his back to violence and instead choose a different option offered by the agents: Pray five times daily, get an engineering degree, fundraise for al-Qaida.
Instead, they say, he insisted on becoming "operational," at first even asking to be a martyr before the agents talked him out of it. It was a theme that they said continued throughout the sting: Agents offered peaceful options, Mohamud repeatedly chose violence.
Even in the final minute of the final hour of the final day, parked in the train station lot, "Hussein" said Mohamud could have walked away.
"Was there any hesitation on his part?" asked prosecutor Pam Holsinger on Friday.
"None," Hussein said.
Holsinger paused.
"If he saw (the bomb) and said he didn't want to..." Holsinger said.
"If he did not dial the number," the agent said, "the directive was for us to drive him home."
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Reach reporter Nigel Duara on Facebook at http://bit.ly/RSmBei
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.
When a young man of Middle Eastern attempts to be a danger to be others in accordance with his personal religious beliefs, he is tried in the criminal justice system on terrorism charges. If a young Caucasian male attempts to be a danger to others in accordance with his personal religious beliefs, he is funneled into the psychiatric system. The insanity defense should be abolished. All young men (and women) should be treated equally. Â
 @ObviousZebra Know your geography before posting.  Somalia is NOT a Middle Eastern country.  It is at the tip of Africa's Horn.  BTW, a terrorist is a terrorist, no matter he/she is White, Black, Brown or other color.  We've put many White domestic terrorists in jail or even executed some.
 @ObviousZebraÂ
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You're not suggesting that this stupid kid was targeted because he's readily identifiable as being of middle Eastern heritage or that that fact could bias anyone against him? For shame. Justice sees no color and it is just coincidental that non-whites serve four times the prison sentence of white criminals and represent 70% of the prison population while the whites represent 72% of the American population.  Clearly, whites are just less guilty than anyone else...and typically represent the majority on any jury.
 @Icarus  @ObviousZebra He came to the FBI's attention, agents testified, when he kept up email contact with a Saudi Arabian man suspected by Interpol of terrorism.
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LOL. Is there really some confusion about why he was targeted? Give me a break.
More fear mongering tactics to justify a bloated out of control FBI! Â Time and time again you see that same events being played out in this country. Demonizing Islam and fanning the flames of "the homegrown terrorist" propaganda they conduct a carefully crafted entrapment of vulnerable individuals who clearly pose no real threat to society.Â
It's shocking that some people are defending him. This guy isn't a victim. The FBI didn't contact him at random, he put his name out into the terrorist world. We're lucky the FBI "recruited" him before someone else did.
The only terrorists they catch are the ones they create!
Defense questins if terror suspect would have acted without FBI.
The answer is no. He would turn arround and  become a mormon  instead.
"Entrapment" is only claimed by those who are guilty.Â
 @wondering Yeah, that's it. Quite original.Â
what they should be asking is why he went along with it. if some guy offered to help you to commit a crime and it turns out he worked for the police shame on you. happens all the time, for example prostitution stings, murder for hire cases, drug trafficking, etc. he took the bait, showing he was determned to cause harm to innocent people. his lawyers should focus on portraying him as an immature, brainwashed kid to get a less stiff sentence instead of making blame shifting excuses. if you hate america then you can get the heck on outta here!
 @PhuzzÂ
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Curious thing about your examples: the prostitute, the murder for hire, the drug trafficking they all presuppose that the individual is already engaged in illegal activity. The cops can't approach a woman offer her $10K for sex and then arrest her for prostitution because they are the active agent soliciting the illegal activity; the prostitute has to make the offer of sex for money, the murder for higher has to make a solicitation and bring the money, the drug trafficker has to bring money or drugs with a plan to exchange.
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Likewise, this dumb kid wasn't out pimping bombs for others to carry or organizing a terrorist cell or assembling bombs or building a cache of weapons or anything that was actually a threat at all and soliciting the FBI agent to play a part in his plan. The FBI contacted him, played to his fantasy, isolated him socially, paid his rent and created a scenario for him to idealize and then sent him shopping at Lowes and Walmart for everyday household items and then charged him as a terrorist kingpin and sold the story to the public with a grand flourish and great bravado because they're heroes.
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The kid clearly needed some attention and adult supervision but dressing him up like a kingpin terrorist serves an entirely different purpose; you can wash a pig in buttermilk, dress up in a skirt, place a bonnet on its head, and dabble its lips with lipstick but I still won't take it to the Saturday barn dance.  The FBI may think it funny to see so many people punch that old shoats' dance ticket but I'm not amused at all.
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Icarus, I don't think the FBI just approached this guy. weren't they tipped of his desire to do something? My examples may not be perfect but they could argue they were entrapped as well, depending on what kind of interactions they had with the undercover. The "war against terrorism" is an unconventional war. We're not up against a nation state. In some instances it's individual persons. Likewise they have to use unconventional tactics. Hence the police sting operation flavor of this case. Also I believe it was stated  the FBI gave him plenty of opportunities to back out. I do believe the defense has some superficial degree of leverage with what they are claiming. It's up for a jury to decide.
 @Icarus  @Phuzz His own father feared him. He was already in contact with confirmed terrorists. Had already made plans to travel to Yemen for jihad training. How far should he be able to go before we give him the rope to hang himself?
Listen up, newshounds at KATU, can't you find a newer photo of this guy? And no, I don't mean a pastel crayon sketch of him from the left rear quarter while he's sitting in court.
 @jpk It's all part of the agenda to continue to portray the mentally defective as scary boogie men.
 @axpman  @jpk Uh.... the mentally defective are proving to be scary boogie men in many cases.
 @axpman  @jpk Particularly if they aren't white.
@axpman Just think of all the free face publicity Grace Jones is getting. LOL
Interesting facts:
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-They worked with this guy even though he is under-age.
-They call him a terrorist even though everything was fake including the bomb.
-He was vulnerable.
-He may or may not have done this on his own.
-He is an american citizen.
 @portlandborn83 They paid his rent for him so he could gather this together. they enabled him. he would not have been able to do so without their help. They banked on his faith that he would do this, and that is wrong. I don't think he should get off freely, but neither do I think the FBI is without blemish here, either.
@No_Conservitards @portlandborn83Â Â Umm - he could have said NO,
 @margay1  @wondering  @No_Conservitards For me it's knowing that he was looking so hard for support in becoming a full on terrorist. I appreciate the FBI and their ability to intervene before he was eventually in a position to detonate a real bomb. There's plenty of messed up kids out there that have no intention of harming anyone that could use this level of support, that our fellow posters are displaying. Wish they'd go save a kid worth saving.
 @wondering  @No_Conservitards ~  I think that, for me, is the "deciding" point... I haven't heard / read anything that said that anyone was holding a gun to his head when he dialed that cell phone... and absent that, he had the option of backing out - saying "No".  Seems to me that he chose the path he took...
 @No_Conservitards And the biggest thing about it is that our country is creating these so called extremists with the very agency that is supposed to protect us! Pulling them out of thin air! @oops
@FreedomRocks
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 @Icarus  @portlandborn83  @oops  @FreedomRocks It should be remembered that the Inqusition, once they had run out of Cathars and Waldensians, found new targets. So it is with the FBI.
 @portlandborn83  @No_Conservitards  @oops  @FreedomRocksÂ
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That is the new face of terrorism. Domestic agencies maintaining a "threat level" that keeps the population in fear and in check. Very 1984.Â
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Don't forget that Portland rejoined the JTTF just 5 months after the FBI revealed their "Christmas Tree Plot". Portland had quit the JTTF nearly 5 years earlier because of the FBI agency excesses related to Brandon Mayfield and the lack of transparency and accountability built into the JTTF program itself.
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All this has come about as a result of the Patriot Act which was passed in the dead of night while the nation was stressed and fearful. Maintaining a level of fear makes the population seek authoritarian solutions and increases their suspicion of each other and the liberties that they find unnecessary but the believe only benefits their neighbor whom they have been told by the government is suspicious.  The American people have proven time and again that they are gullible and highly suitable to manipulation.  And, that is the greatest threat to the dream of America.
 @portlandborn83 You better just give him a big old hug and tell him everything is all right. Better yet, invite him to live in your home with you and your family. Better tell all your like minded neighbors, as they would love him around their family's too.
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I bet you wouldn't, just like most of Portland's closet conservatives posing to be "PC" to save face to some retard.
 @portlandborn83 Those are all great talking points I'm just not sure they have anything to do with what's actually going on here.
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When did becoming an American citizen, underage, or vulnerable void you from being a terrorist?
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About the only one remotely close to a valid criticism is whether or not he would've taken action regardless of their help in providing him what he thought was a method to harm lots of people.
 @FreedomRocks  @portlandborn83 The only difference was the agents weren't really jihad terrorists. But he didn't know that, so it doesn't exonerate him from his true intention.
Testimony will show that Mohamed Mohamud was waiting for Ashton Kutcher to jump out of a van tell him he'd been "Punked". Boy how disappointed was he when he found out it was only the FBI.
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Have a nice life................sentence!
So now we're defending the terrorists over our own people who are here to protect us from this? No American would get such treatment anywhere else in the world. What is wrong with this picture people?!?!?!?
@JohnPDX  What's wrong with it? Liberals with no spines, that's what's wrong.
 @wonderingÂ
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And, BTW --- I'm not suggesting that Liberals are immune to irrational thought and fear-based one-dimensional reactionary behavior because they're not. Rather, the goal is to remind that there are always people who prefer to tell other WHAT to think rather than HOW to think and they are the dangerous ones regardless of their affiliation.Â
 @wonderingÂ
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Or, perhaps, people that try to politically polarize every little issue and blame their imaginary opposition without ever validating their outrageous claims by any clear rational explanation or reasonable logical chain of evidence/facts/events. Honestly, demonizing and bjectification and identification of an imaginary foe, typically, invested with supernatural/unnatural powers by superficial or singular characteristics, and labeling them foe is the very stuff of extremest organizations whether they are Westboro Babtists or Religious Fanatics or the KKK or Neo-Nazi's. And, ultimately, these organizations are the very entities that that keep their members imprisoned and controlled by ignorant and irrational fears. Before the rule of law these fear based impulses were the cause of crusades and stake burnings in modern times it is the cause of bombings and genocide.
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Think for yourself, find the humanity in others first, hear their position then, if necessary, agreeably, disagree on the basis of rational thoughtful consideration backed by facts or events based in reality. Be reasonable.
 @JohnPDXÂ
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Is it really so simple for you as simply choosing sides? Picking good guys from bad guys based on superficial information and maybe a gut feeling and some statements by some cowboy cops seeking a good conviction? Do you realize how many Death Row criminals convicted by white juries on testimony from cops just as motivated as these were later proven innocent by DNA evidence? It is really fortunate for those people that the justice system works slowly and deliberately and has replaced vigilante justice of the past. The angry mob at KATU blogs would have lynched this kid two years ago...because they had all heard enough and that "terrorist" didn't deserve his day in court.
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You said:Â Â Â "No American would get such treatment anywhere else in the world. What is wrong with this picture people?!?!?!?"
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Why do you criticize the American system of justice and compare is less favorably to other countries where people are summarily executed or jailed or tortured without access or protection of the law? Why would you advocate vigilante or summary judgement in place of the American ideal of Justice based on the rule of law and rights for all American Citizens?  Because, I find that way of thinking patently anti-American and believe that it is a disturbingly unrecognized threat to American liberties and ideals. I am proud of the American Ideals enumerated in the Declaration of Independence and advocate a system of Justice that is always seeking to be more perfect and closer to the ideal of equality.Â
If this isn't a case of entrapment, what would be?
 @pique I think it's missing one important detail for it to be entrapment. I don't believe that they made contact with him asking him to do this. They simply provided him he means to do something he already wanted to.
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It's not like they're looking up people out of the phonebook knocking on their front door and saying hey we've got this nice bomb in the back of our trunk would you be willing to blow up the local courthouse.
 @FreedomRocks From everything else I've read it doesn't sound like he had the cognitive ability to carry it out on his own without help from the FBI.  It doesn't matter what jury they've picked this kid is still going to prison, if not death row. Being naive and stupid won't help his case, nor the sentencing.Â