FBI BUSTS 'HOMEGROWN NY TERROR CELL'

[Iamwhomiam]

Earlier today I sent this out to a friend who communicates with the imprisoned Albany Imam and watches over his family. I know the defense attorneys in that case.

Perhaps the name above doesn't ring a bell...

The Newburgh Four -- And The Government Mole Who Betrayed Them

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.c ... e.php#more

Excerpted from above linked to article:

The Informant

- An upstate motel owner, identified by the New York Post as Shahed Hussain, 52, he became a government informant in 2002, after he was busted for helping immigrants cheat on drivers tests while working as a DMV translator. He was hoping to win leniency in his sentencing and avoid being deported to Pakistan. (It's unclear how the Post got Hussain's name. A spokeswoman for the US attorney's office told TPMmuckraker it was not released by the government).

- He started showing up at the Newburgh mosque, where all four men attended services, around 2007. An imam at the mosque said he invited other worshipers out for meals, and talked about Jihad. "There was just something fishy about him," said the imam, saying that some members "believed he was a government agent."

- The imam also said he had been told that Hussain offered at least one member of the congregation a substantial amount of money to join his "team."

- The owner of a local restaurant (either Denny's or Danny's -- reports differ) where the Newburgh Four would regularly eat rice and beans said that a few months ago, a fifth man starting showing up. He appeared to be of South Asian descent and would usually pay for the meal. The restaurant owner said he thought the man was the boss.

- This isn't his first sting operation. A few years ago, he posed as an arms dealer who had sold a shoulder-launched missile to be used to kill a Pakistani envoy. Two Albany men, Mohammed Hossain and Yassin Aref, helped him launder money from the supposed sale, and were convicted and sentenced to fifteen years in prison."

[Nordic]

Here's a great piece from The Village Voice on this:

FBI Agent on Synagogue Case Has Questionable Record

http://www.roguegovernment.com/FBI_Agen ... 7/Y/M.html

The FBI agent with a high-profile role in yesterday's arrests of four men for plotting a terror attack in New York has a pretty interesting -- and controversial -- track record.

Special Agent Robert Fuller, whose name appears at the top of the federal criminal complaint in the case, had a hand in the FBI's failure to nab two of the 9/11 hijackers, had one of his informants set himself on fire in front of the White House, and was involved in misidentifying a Canadian man as a terrorist leading to his secret arrest and torture -- a case that is now the subject of a major lawsuit.

Fuller is listed as the lead agent in the arrests of four men yesterday who officials say were trying to blow up a couple of synagogues and shoot a military jet from the sky. But as in other cases of seemingly inept homegrown terrorists, the four suspects were supplied (inert) weapons from an FBI informant, and in coming weeks we'll learn more about how much that informant goaded the four suspects into carrying out the supposed acts of terrorism. The case is being prosecuted in the Southern District of New York. (James Margolin, an FBI spokesman said the agency declines to comment for this story, because Fuller is a potential witness in an ongoing prosecution.)

Fuller was involved in the earlier Canadian case as the man who interrogated a wounded Afghani teenager named Omar Khadr. (We've written extensively about Khadr's bizarre case here.) Under Fuller's interrogation, Khadr dubiously identified a Canadian citizen named Maher Arar as someone he had seen in Afghanistan. Arar was then shipped to Syria where he was imprisoned and tortured for a year. It's now been proven that Arar could not have been in Afghanistan when Khadr, under intense pressure from Fuller, said he saw him there.

In January, Fuller took the witness stand in Khadr's trial at Guantanamo Bay. He testified that during the interrogation at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, Khadr identified Arar from a photo and said he had seen him in Afghanistan.

Under cross examination, though, Fuller disclosed that Khadr didn't actually identify Arar. Instead, he first said Arar "looked familiar," and then "in time" he felt he recognized the man in the photo, according to Fuller's testimony.

"We don't know what was happening, whether that was hours or days later," Kerry Pither, a Canadian journalist whose book Dark Days: The story of four Canadians tortured in the name of fighting terror focuses on the Arar case.

According to Steven Watt, one of Arar's lawyers now with the ACLU, Khadr's identification should have been treated as highly suspect...
"Khadr would have been about 14, blind in one eye and suffering from serious wounds," Watt says. "It was totally ridiculous."

A Canadian commission of inquiry had already established that Arar was in Canada at the time that Fuller claims that Khadr said he was supposedly in Afghanistan.

"Fuller very clearly has a questionable track record," Pither says. "Even if his claims about what Khadr said were true, there's no doubt that Khadr would have said anything. He is on the record as having said he would have said anything to get better treatment."

Arar's "extraordinary rendition" was a huge story in Canada. He was the first person so treated to go public and demand accountability.

His lawsuit against the Canadian government was settled for $10 million. He also got an apology from the Canadian prime minister on national television (Imagine a U.S. president doing the same).

The apology was given after a high ranking Canadian minister had the opportunity to view the American intelligence file on Arar -- confirming, Pither says, once and for all that Arar was innocent. Arar's lawsuit against the U.S. government is still pending.

Fuller was also on the team that was tasked to track down two of the 9/11 hijackers in August, 2001, prior to the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

The New York Observer reported that after the CIA told the FBI that the two hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hamzi were in the United States, Fuller was assigned to bring them into custody on Aug. 23, 2001, 19 days prior to the attacks.

A fellow agent, the Observer reported, had labeled the lead "routine," meaning that Fuller had 30 days to catch them. Fuller went through local databases, checked Mihdhar's New York hotel and then let it drop. Standard procedure, the papers said, held that he also should have search commercial databases, but he did not.

He later claimed that he consulted ChoicePoint database on Sept. 4 or 5, but the 9/11 Commission later concluded that the FBI did not consult that database until after the attacks, the newspaper said.

And in November, 2004, an informant Fuller was working with named Mohamed Alanssi made his way to the sidewalk in front of the White House and set himself on fire. Alanssi's suicide letter was addressed to Fuller, who, at the time, had been his chief case agent for three years, according to a court affidavit he filed.

Alanssi, 52, emotionally unbalanced and distraught, said in the rambling letter that he wanted to go home to Yemen to see his wife before he testified in open court. Alanssi also complained that his case agents broke their promises to pay him, to get him citizenship and to protect his identity, the Washington Post wrote at the time.

"Why you don't care about my life and my family's life," he wrote. " Once I testify my family will be killed in Yemen, me too I will be dead man."

Alanssi told the Post that the FBI paid him $100,000 in 2003. "It is my big mistake that I have cooperated with FBI. The FBI have already destroyed my life and my family's life and made us in a very danger position . . . I am not crazy to destroy my life and my family's life to get $100,000," he said.

A 2004 New York Times story reported that the FBI had used Alanssi in the prosecution of 20 people.

"Mr. Alanssi's bizarre actions also put on full display another vulnerability in high-pressure investigations: The strained relationships that are often the foundation of investigators' dealings with their informants can suddenly careen out of control," wrote the Times' William Glaberson.

Alanssi survived but was left in critical condition with burns over 30 percent of his body.

[StarmanSkye]

According to Steven Watt, one of Arar's lawyers now with the ACLU, Khadr's identification should have been treated as highly suspect...
"Khadr would have been about 14, blind in one eye and suffering from serious wounds," Watt says. "It was totally ridiculous."

A Canadian commission of inquiry had already established that Arar was in Canada at the time that Fuller claims that Khadr said he was supposedly in Afghanistan.

"Fuller very clearly has a questionable track record," Pither says. "Even if his claims about what Khadr said were true, there's no doubt that Khadr would have said anything. He is on the record as having said he would have said anything to get better treatment."

Arar's "extraordinary rendition" was a huge story in Canada. He was the first person so treated to go public and demand accountability.

His lawsuit against the Canadian government was settled for $10 million. He also got an apology from the Canadian prime minister on national television (Imagine a U.S. president doing the same).

Holy CoW!
Why wasn't this front-page news and heavily featured every half-hour on the US's mainstream TV 'news' programs?
(rhetorical Q)

JeeSuS.

And to have the key informant in 20 'terror' prosecutions that Fuller was a case officer in charge-of attempt such a grisly public spectacle as to light himself on fire in front of the White House, why wasn't THAT widely featured as an evident 'success' of the alphabet agencies fight against Islamofascism (I'd giggle about now if the story wasn't so tragic)? -- what does THAT show but that ALL of the informant's testimony is highly suspect, and the cases of the 20 convictions ought to be reviewed if not thrown out.

Isn't the number of people around the world killed via US policy since WW II in the many 'actions' and undeclared wars, covert ops, low-intensity conflicts, regime-changes, coups, staged terror attacks, targetted assassinations and false-flag attacks (based on lies, distortions, fake 'evidence' and other BS pretexts etc.) around twenty million?

What dupes the American citizenry are for swallowing such blatant, outrageous propaganda for years, never even questioning the absurd premise that the US is under attack by extremists because of its ['freedom', the nation itself a 'victim' and under immanent threat of further terrorism, not even wondering why such extraordinary efforts have been made by mainstream media and gov. officials to avoid asking the central question of any criminal investigation: Who Benefits?

[justdrew]

millions of American citizens do question and do complain bitterly about the blatant propaganda, misinformation, distortions and lack of coverage. they don't give a shit. they own all the media, even the little guys get leaned on hard and they're coming after the web as best they can short of going the china route. but... even tho so many people are online these days, they waste their time with bullshit and know two things: Jack and Shit about what's going on. When you try to tell them, when any one tries to tell them anything, they get scared and defensive and attack. WHAT THE FUCK ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO? Nothing makes a dent, and now even the progress that had seemed fairly solid is gone since obama's here to make it all better. It might as well be fifty years ago for all the further we've come, the average citizen is more conformist, less educated, less able to think critically, less involved with world events, and more manipulated by irrational fears than ever.

[bks]

Penguin wrote:

Or why hasnt anyone done a citizens arrest of the FBI agent provocateur?
"Hi, I need cops, Ive just arrested a man trying to make me buy explosives and suggesting I throw hand grenades in waste baskets!"

from the Fort Dix Five trial:

Tatar, a former restaurant worker and 7-Eleven clerk who lived in Philadelphia, spoke in court for about 40 minutes. Much of his talk was devoted to giving his side of a bizarre incident in the investigation — when he went to Philadelphia police, then the FBI, to report that someone had asked him for a map of Fort Dix.

At the time, his father owned a pizza shop near the central New Jersey Army installation, used primarily to train reservists for deployments in Iraq. Prosecutors say the men were focusing on the fort as a target because of Tatar's knowledge of the base.

In the trial, government prosecutors portrayed Tatar's approaching authorities as a savvy effort to smoke out Omar as an FBI informant.
Tatar said he was honestly trying to report possible criminal activity.
"I thought I was doing the right thing," he said. "And I ended up screwing it up for everyone." His mistake, he said, was lying and telling investigators that he had not handed over the map when in fact he had.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090429/ap_ ... t_dix_plot

.

[Nordic]

Story today on Alternet about this:

FBI Blows It: Supposed Terror Plot Against NY Synagogues Is Bogus

By the now, it's maddeningly familiar. A scary terrorist plot is announced. Then it's revealed that the suspects are a hapless bunch of ne'er-do-wells or run-of-the-mill thugs without the slightest connection to any terrorists at all, never mind to Al Qaeda. Finally, the last piece of the puzzle: the entire plot is revealed to have been cooked up by a scummy government agent-provocateur.

I've seen this movie before.

In this case, the alleged perps -- Onta Williams, James Cromitie, David Williams, and Laguerre Payen -- were losers, ex-cons, drug addicts. Al Qaeda they're not. Without the assistance of the agent who entrapped them, they would never have dreamed of committing political violence, nor would they have had the slightest idea about where to acquire plastic explosives or a Stinger missile. That didn't stop prosecutors from acting as if they'd captured Osama bin Laden himself.

Then here's the really good one -- from Infowars, via Cryptogon:

http://cryptogon.com/?p=8711

Deadly NY Terror Cell Are Semi-Retarded Potheads

Exactly as we predicted in our headline story yesterday, two of the ringleaders in the “deadly” New York terror plot salaciously hyped by the media and government officials have turned out to be semi-retarded potheads.

“The men will likely turn out to be semi-retarded dropouts,” we stated in our article yesterday, basing our forecast on the fact that in every other major terror sting in the west given so much prominence by officials and the corporate media, the poor suckers rounded up by the feds always turn out to be low IQ petty criminals down on their luck, provocateured and armed by federal agents.

We already knew that the men were provided with an inert rocket launcher and fake C4 explosives by an FBI informant, and now as more details emerge, our original summation of the case is proving accurate.
According to an Associated Press report, the four men charged with planning to blow up synagogues and military planes, “Were amateurs every step of the way. They had trouble finding guns and bought cameras at Wal-Mart to photograph their targets. One was a convicted purse snatcher, another smoked marijuana the day the plot was to be carried out.”

The report continues,”Relatives said the defendants were down-on-their-luck men who worked at places like Wal-Mart, a landscaping company and a warehouse when they weren’t behind bars. Payen’s lawyer said he was “intellectually challenged” and on medication for schizophrenia. Marilyn Reader said he has “a very low borderline” IQ.”

Of course, it was only after an FBI informant radicalized these bums and provided them with weapons that they became any kind of threat, providing the feds the opportunity to swoop in, declare a victory in the war on terror and use the case as a poster child for Americans to accept police state measures and believe the hype surrounding “domestic terrorists” in the wake of controversy surrounding the MIAC report.
As the AP article concedes, “Some have criticized informants’ roles in such cases, saying they egged on and ensnared suspects who weren’t dangerous.”

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

The spooks keep story fodder like this bogus one on the shelf ready to go when needed as distraction or to buttress fear myths.

There's a whole arsenal of counterpropaganda events at the ready to whip out and viral market as the Magician's Other Hand.

[sunny]

Cannonfire

[SonicG]

Robert Dreyfuss in The Nation- essentially the same points as the other articles cited here. Dreyfuss' book sounds interesting: "Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam" (Henry Holt/Metropolitan Books).

[justdrew]

http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/05/jihad-lite/

This terrorism sting case from New York keeps getting stranger. In two New York publications, the girlfriends of those accused are stepping out to defend their men. What they're saying is certainly enough to raise eyebrows.

From The New York Post:

She said Maqsood promised to get Cromitie jobs and once said he would give him a black Mercedes-Benz. On repeated occasions, he gave Cromitie cameras, cash and even drugs, she said.

"Maqsood gave him a lot of marijuana," she said.

An FBI spokesman did not return a call for comment on the alleged gift giving.

Williams' mother, Elizabeth McWilliams, said her son fell under Maqsood's sway in April with promises to help with medical bills for his sick brother.

From The New York Daily News:

"Maqsood would keep ringing our doorbell, and James would hide behind the sofa," Baynes said.

"I know something wasn't right with Maqsood from the beginning. He would call and say, 'I got lots of money. Anything you need I can give you, sister.'"

[...]

"It's all a lie, and the government knows deep down inside that these four men are not terrorists," Baynes said. "We're going to stand together as a family and watch God move mountains."

"We are not entrapping or encouraging anyone to commit a crime," Joseph M. Demarest, head of New York's FBI office, told the Associated Press. "We merely facilitated their wishes."

It's too early to pronounce public verdict on this strange case, but needless to say, the latest developments certainly warrant closer scrutiny.

-- Stephen C. Webster

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 24th, 2009 at 9:05 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

[MacCruiskeen]

A post from DU, linling to two news reports:

Terror plotter David Williams did it for me, says sick brother Lord McWilliams

Updated at 12:41 PM

Source: NY Daily News

"My insurance wasn't good enough," said Lord McWilliams, 20, who has a deadly liver disease.

His brother, David Williams, wanted money "to speed up the process," McWilliams said. "Medicaid only goes so far."

He dismissed as "crazy" federal accusations that Williams was a Jew-hater who wanted to wage jihad.

McWilliams said the FBI informant who lured his brother and three other hapless petty criminals into a plot to blow up synagogues and shoot down a plane promised enough money to take care of his transplant.

"My brother told me, 'Don't worry, when you go to the doctor, tell them you got money,'" McWilliams said.

McWilliams, who has already had his spleen removed, said his brother told him he would have $20,000 for the operation.



Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crim ... 5/25/200...


The F.B.I. informant even promised to take the sick brother-Lord McWilliams to Universal Studios when he was well again.

Homegrown terrorist or desperate men? The FBI says that David Williams is the most dangerous of the four. Sounds more like a man desperate to save his brother's life.

snip

Family and friends say the four were down-on-their luck ex-cons who apparently thought they would be paid by the FBI informant.

In dozens of interviews around Newburgh, no one can remember hearing any of the four talk of Jews or jihad.

The informant, Shahed Hussain, is a Pakistani immigrant who went undercover for the feds seven years ago to avoid deportation after being convicted of fraud. He was not authorized to pay anyone.


Also: NYPD, FBI heroes honored after foiling terror plot to bomb Riverdale synagogues

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crim ... 5/22/200...

"Even though cops called Cromitie the ringleader, Snyder singled out David Williams as the meanest of the bad-news bunch, saying he bragged he'd shoot anyone who tried to stop him."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/di ... 02x3891996

The "War on Terror" as the War on the Poor (and the Black).

[MacCruiskeen]

Lord McWilliams sits with books he says FBI informant gave his brother, David Williams, a suspect in Bronx synagogue bombing plot. He says his brother also expected money from informant.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crim ... GXUv2FQI&B

If anyone was starting a race war here, it was the FBI.

These four men are going to spend the rest of their lives in prison, for the crime of being poor, naive, and above all desperate:



By the way, if I hear one more liberal hack calling them "losers" I'm gonna puke. (From the Bill O'Reillys of this world it's only to be expected.) When did that foul little virus of a word start infecting polite speech? Under Reagan?

[Penguin]

Also - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/w ... 350389.ece

ON the steps of New York city hall on Friday, Michael Bloomberg, the mayor, praised the police officers and federal agents who helped disrupt an apparent terrorist plot to blow up a synagogue and shoot down military aircraft.

The mayor was flanked by more than 100 homeland security and counter-terrorist specialists, all of whom had a hand in an elaborate sting that netted four alleged Muslim extremists. Their plan, according to FBI agents, was to detonate a “fireball that would make the country gasp”.

The operation was acclaimed by New York officials for its success in averting what David Paterson, the state governor, described as “a heinous crime”.

Yet not every New Yorker was impressed by the latest in a long line of purported anti-terrorist triumphs that have supposedly averted tragedy in New York, Chicago, Toronto and several other North American cities since September 11, 2001.

“This whole operation was a foolish waste of time and money,” claimed Terence Kindlon, a defence lawyer who represented the last terror suspect to be tried in New York state. “It is almost as if the FBI cooked up the plot and found four idiots to install as defendants.”

Kindlon’s complaints were echoed by other legal experts who have repeatedly questioned the FBI’s reliance on undercover informants – known as confidential witnesses (CWs) – who lure gullible radicals into far-fetched plots that are then foiled by the agents monitoring them.

The last such plot purportedly involved an alleged attempt to blow up a fuel pipeline at John F Kennedy airport in New York in 2007; the defendants are awaiting trial in a case that depends heavily on evidence from an undercover CW.

“One question [about the synagogue case] that has to be answered is: did the informant go in and enlist people who were otherwise not considering trouble ?” said Kevin Luibrand, who represented a Muslim businessman caught up in another FBI sting three years ago. “Did the government induce someone to commit a crime?”

The other question that US security experts were debating was how much had been achieved by assigning more than 100 agents to a year-long investigation of three petty criminals and a mentally ill Haitian immigrant, none of whom had any connection with any known terrorist group. “They were all unsophisticated dimwits,” said Kindlon.

More than a 100 agents, ...

This shit sounds exactly like 24 this year, once again.

[MacCruiskeen]

Girlfriends of accused Bronx wanna-be terrorists defend their men

BY Matt Lysiak and Rich Schapiro
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Sunday, May 24th 2009, 4:00 AM

Cassandra McKoy, defends her boyfriend, David Williams, one of the accused Bronx terrorists.


Related News Articles:

* Informant offered liver to Bronx terror suspects bro, sez mom
* Mosque congregants sketched out by informant who ensnared terror susps
* Law had wanna-be Bronx jihadists under constant surveillance
* 'Stupidest man on the planet,' says sister of terrorist wanna-be
* Homegrown terrorists not slickest operators
* Daly: Armed with intent but not skills to pull it off
* Meet the dangerous terrorist dummies
* No bail for Bronx terror plot suspects
* How the FBI, NYPD foiled the plot
* Terror plot 'shocking,' says rabbi in Riverdale
* Four nabbed in possible plot to bomb synagogues

My man's no terrorist!

The girlfriends of two of the accused Bronx bomb plotters said Saturday their beaus are sweet, sensitive and devoted men who were taken advantage of by an overzealous informant.

"David is the most sensitive man I've ever met," Cassandra McCoy said of her boyfriend, David Williams.

"He has three leatherbound books of poetry, where he writes beautiful books about growing up without a father. He loves kids.

"There's no way that he's the man the government is making him out to be."

Kathleen Baynes said the informant she knew as "Maqsood" plied her boyfriend James Cromitie with cash, free food, rent money and even bags of marijuana.

"This is entrapment," Baynes, 44, said. "They come and hit a brother who is down and out, and tell him they'll give him the world. Maqsood is no different than a pimp or drug dealer sitting on 42nd St."

Baynes said the informant, identified as Shahed Hussain, began stalking Cromitie, 44, even after she told him her boyfriend moved away.

"Maqsood would keep ringing our doorbell, and James would hide behind the sofa," Baynes said.

"I know something wasn't right with Maqsood from the beginning. He would call and say, 'I got lots of money. Anything you need I can give you, sister.'"

A law enforcement source said the informant was not authorized to pay anyone, and even told Cromitie that only those "pure" recruits who did it from their heart could be involved.

"It's all a lie, and the government knows deep down inside that these four men are not terrorists," Baynes said. "We're going to stand together as a family and watch God move mountains."

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crim ... eties.html

[MacCruiskeen]

Question to Americans: What kind of trial can these four men expect? A jury trial? In open court?

On the basis of what I've seen so far in the media, the whole case against them looks scandalously thin and unjust and easy to debunk. If a handful of good NYC lawyers were to take up their case, it looks as though it could easily become a cause celebre, and a good way of exposing the grotesqueness of the entire War on Terror.