Accused Atlanta terrorist was committed to attacks, friend said

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By MEGAN MATTEUCCI

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

An Atlanta accountant and his two friends spent hours watching Osama bin Laden training videos and practicing jihad attack moves with paintball guns in the woods in north Georgia, he testified Tuesday.

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Walter Cumming, Special Government witness Omer Kamal on the witness stand being questioned by defendant Ehsanul Islam Sadequee.

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When the practices turned into plans of moving to the Middle East and linking up with terrorist groups, the accountant backed out. But his friends continued with the plans up until they were captured by the FBI, Omer Kamal told a federal jury Tuesday.

Kamal’s buddy, 23-year-old Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, is on trial for charges he conspired to help overseas terrorists launch a violent jihad. His other friend, former Georgia Tech student Syed Haris Ahmed, was convicted in June of conspiring to help terrorists.

Kamal, who cooperated with the FBI and agreed to testify against his friend, said he got scared he was under surveillance and backed out of the terrorist plans.

They were “contemplating going to any theater of combat to participate in violent jihad,” Kamal told a jury Tuesday in U.S. District Court.

Sadequee said he talked about jihad “fantasies,” but never had an actual plan of violence.

“There was no plan. There was a lot of talk about doing a lot of things,” he told the jury. “A lot of just empty talk.”

Prosecutors say Sadequee didn’t need to actually launch an attack, just orchestrating it is a crime.

“The law allows the government to stop the plan before someone enrolls in flight school and learns to fly a jet,” Assistant U.S. District Attorney Robert McBurney said.

Sadequee has denied that he conspired with known terrorists – including one arrested with 40 pounds of explosives. Prosecutors said he supplied videos of Washington D.C. landmarks to overseas terrorists.

Sadequee, who is representing himself, presented a 14-minute opening statement in his own trial Tuesday and then spent over an hour cross-examining his friend Kamal.

On Tuesday, Ahmed, who is awaiting sentencing, also agreed to testify against Sadequee – as long as he could have time for prayer. He will take the stand Wednesday.

“The first and foremost priority for me is to answer to my God,” Ahmed told the judge.

Tuesday’s proceedings were also filled with prayers from Sadequee and his mother, who sat in the audience, silently weeping and repeating prayers.

Dressed in khaki-colored scrubs, a beard and long unkempt hair, Sadequee nervously defended his actions to the jury. He said he only talked of the ideologies of jihad in chat rooms and that 90 percent of his online conversations were translations.

“These are not things mainstream Americans agree with,” he told the jury. “But nonetheless, it’s supposed to be protected by the First Amendment.”

But according to Kamal, the jihad plans were real - so real that he got scared and typed a note to tell his friends he could no longer participate. He slipped the note under a friends’ door, stopped answering their phone calls and changed his email address, said Kamal, a former Georgia State student.

The note came after hours spent watching Taliban recruitment speeches, videos on how to make improvised explosive devises and working out to prepare for jihad battles, Kamal said. The group even talked about potential terrorist targets, including the White House, the U.S. Capitol, Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prison, Kamal said.

Sadequee continued those talks in Canada, where he met with terrorists, prosecutors said. He also made a video of the U.S. Capitol, the World Bank and the U.S. Department of Energy, which he sent encrypted to London terrorists, prosecutors said.

The trial is expected to continue throughout the week. If convicted Sadequee faces more than 20 years in prison.