Prosecutors hail guilty verdicts in terror trial

By MEGAN MATTEUCCI

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Federal prosecutors say they prevented the possibility of an overseas attack Wednesday when a federal jury convicted a Roswell man of four counts of aiding terrorists.

Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, 23, faces 60 years in prison.

“We can wait until something happens or things get very close to happening,” U.S. Attorney David Nahmias said. “I think we all learned on Sept. 11, we don’t wait any more.”

The verdict came Wednesday after about five hours of deliberations and six days of testimony in U.S. District Court in Atlanta.

A jury of nine men and three women found Sadequee guilty of conspiracy to provide support to terrorists and attempting to aid terrorists, particularly Lashkar-e-Tayyiba - a Pakistan-based terrorist organization.

Sadequee, who represented himself, stared quietly down at the table as a clerk read the verdict Wednesday. His mother and sister looked straight ahead and showed no signs of emotion.

Sonali Sadequee, the defendant’s older sister, said she was “absolutely” disappointed in the verdict.

“What’s the most frustrating is to see the post-9/11 climate. Even though Obama communicated there will be a shift, it hasn’t gone down to the general understanding of the community and social attitudes,” she said. “I think the jurors didn’t have full information [on Muslims].”

Sadequee’s family claims his First Amendment rights were violated and he was only “exploring” the idea of a jihad.

But prosecutors insist – and the jury agreed – that Sadequee did more than just explore. He was found guilty of sending homemade videos of Washington landmarks to a recruiter for Al Qaeda and another terrorist – both who have been convicted in the United Kingdom.

Prosecutors say Sadequee also met with terrorists in Canada to discuss how to get into a terrorist training camp and tried to recruit others to the jihad cause, including a 17-year-old American.

Nahmias said the main threat was to Pakistan and northern Europe, but Sadequee’s conversations also included possible attacks on U.S. oil refineries.

“One of my greatest fears is one of them will say ‘it’s too hard and expensive to get to the fight in Kashmir, but I’m a U.S. citizen. I can buy a gun and there are plenty of places to cause terror here,’” Nahmias said.

Prosecutors say Sadequee talked online with terrorists about obtaining weapons and what to include in a video on how to make a bomb detonator. Officers found the video, which talked about weapons to be used in an attack on Europe, when they arrested a Bosnian terrorist, prosecutors said.

It’s that video that could have swayed jurors, defense attorney Don Samuel said.

“Seeing the videos of the AK-47s and explosives – which he never saw or touched – it changed the whole atmosphere of the trial,” Samuel said.

The video showed that the threat is real, prosecutors said.

Sadequee dismissed Samuel, who was appointed by the court, on the first day of the trial last week and opted to represent himself.

Samuel said he thought Sadequee’s choice to represent himself might have helped his case because jurors got to see how young, quiet and timid he is.

“The more you see these guys, the more you say ‘You got to be kidding me. These are just kids,’” Samuel said.

Although nervous at first, by the last day of testimony Sadequee was dismissing evidence and explaining e-mails to the jury.

“What the chats do demonstrate quite clearly is we are immature young guys who had imaginations that run wild,” he said. “But I was not then, and I’m not now, a terrorist,”

Sadequee has not decided whether he will file an appeal, Samuel said.

Jurors declined to comment on their decision.

“I’m ready to get out of here. We’re thankful justice has been served,” one juror said as she rushed into an elevator. She did not give her name.

Throughout the trial, the defendant’s family said they were not confident of the outcome, accusing the federal government of destroying evidence and pressuring his friend, Syed Haris Ahmed, to testify.

Ahmed, a former Georgia Tech student, was convicted in June of helping terrorists.

Sadequee and Ahmed are scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 15.