DEL.ICIO.USUpdated: 7:19 a.m. June 02, 2009
Ex-Tech student offered help to terrorists, prosecutors say
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Monday, June 01, 2009
One “casing video” that terrorism defendant Syed Haris Ahmed took of the World Bank building in Washington bobs up and down because he took it as he walked down the street.
“If a terrorist was attacking on a pogo stick, this might be useful, right?” Ahmed’s lawyer, Jack Martin, asked FBI Special Agent Mark Richards on Monday.
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This undated file photo provided by WAGA-TV in Atlanta shows terror suspect Syed Haris Ahmed.
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Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert McBurney gives his opening statement.
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It also could be used to show potential terrorists the security barriers surrounding the World Bank building, Richards replied.
In the exchange during the first day of Ahmed’s trial, Martin sought to discount the prosecution’s contention that his client was “one step removed from the bomb throwers” and ready to wage violent jihad.
Ahmed was a shy, confused and immature Georgia Tech student who was searching for answers and “fell prey” to propagandist Web sites espousing extremist views, Martin said during opening statements of the trial.
Ahmed’s terrorist plans were “passing random thoughts, momentary ideas, childish fantasies, unformed, inchoate notions,” Martin told U.S. District Judge Bill Duffey, who is presiding as judge and jury. “He had the possibility, the opportunity to do it, and he said, ‘No.’ “
Ahmed, 24, is on trial for conspiring to provide support — such as himself and the “casing videos” of possible Washington-area targets — to terrorists here and overseas. If convicted, he faces up to 15 years in prison.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert McBurney said Ahmed took the videos to prove himself to terrorists overseas.
Ahmed and Ehsanul Islam Sadequee of Roswell took the videos in April 2005 when the two men drove to Washington in Ahmed’s pickup truck. Some of the videos were later found on the computers of two men now convicted of terrorism-related crimes in England.
Ahmed and Sadequee, who will be tried in August, wanted to show how they could get in Washington’s “backyard” when terrorists overseas couldn’t even get in the country, McBurney said.
“That’s how close we can get,” the two men were saying, McBurney said. “Look what I can do for you. I can get right up next to the Capitol.”
In one chilling video played in court Monday, the two men drive into Washington one evening and Sadequee turns the camera on the Pentagon and says reverently, “This is where our brothers attacked.”
Earlier, Ahmed and Sadequee traveled to Toronto and met three other terrorism suspects and discussed attacking oil refineries and military bases, and even disabling the GPS system with lasers, McBurney said. The slight, bearded Ahmed also took a one-way ticket to Pakistan in the summer of 2005 to join a military training camp but decided against it.
Not long after Ahmed returned, however, he expressed remorse and regret over his lack of resolve to take the step toward pursuing violent jihad, McBurney said.
At this time, Ahmed concealed his intentions from federal agents by using code words in encrypted communications, McBurney said. “This was not child’s play,” he added.
