Trial nears for ex-Tech student

On Monday, after three years in solitary confinement at the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, Ahmed will stand trial for conspiracy to provide support for acts of terrorism in the United States and abroad. There will be no jury, and there seems little doubt about the verdict because during interviews with federal agents Ahmed helped outline the case against him.

Ahmed, 24, evinces scant concern about the judgment of a temporal court, saying the only laws that matter are the laws of Allah. He agreed to a bench trial so he can deliver what he calls "the message of Islam" during closing arguments.

"It is the duty of every Muslim to deliver the message of God to mankind," he said in a neatly handwritten motion filed recently. "I hope that Allah will be pleased with this act of mine and forgive me on the Day of Judgment when only He will be the Judge of all mankind."

In his motion, which quotes from the Quran, Ahmed said he cannot be a "true and loyal servant of God" by arguing for his acquittal because that would be tantamount to accepting the legitimacy of man-made laws.

Ahmed speaks so softly and so rapidly in English so heavily accented that he is often hard to understand. But he apparently found his voice in Internet chat rooms, where a shy and slight young man could bare his warrior soul to other cyber-extremists.

The trial will show how Ahmed, who grew up in Atlanta's suburbs, embarked on a spiritual journey toward Islamic jihad, how he played at being a terrorist online. In these online dens, Ahmed and his faceless brethren promoted radical views and called for the annihilation of the enemies of Islam.

His attorney describes him as uncertain and malleable.

"He's particularly shy and polite, a somewhat immature person who is easily influenced," Jack Martin said.

A similar picture of Atlanta's first terrorist suspect emerges from hours of tape-recorded interviews and interrogations by counterterrorism agents shortly before his arrest three years ago. On the tapes he is frightened and evasive.

"I am just a stupid child," he tells agents during one session. "I did some mistakes."

But he also talks about how it was "thrilling to be undercover and stuff like that" and says that, if he were to commit a terrorist act in the U.S., his preferred target would be an oil refinery.

U.S. Attorney David Nahmias declined to discuss his case against Ahmed. But in 2006 interrogators told Ahmed they were concerned that he was ready to convert his militant thoughts to deadly actions.

"I don't care what you believe in your heart," a counterterrorism agent told Ahmed during one testy exchange. "You have a right to believe what you have in your heart. When you want to start killing people ... that's when we get involved."

A Pakistani-born U.S. citizen, Ahmed moved to metro Atlanta when he was 12 after his father won a green card in the State Department's annual lottery in 1997. The family first lived in Marietta but moved to Roswell to cut his father's commute to North Georgia College & State University in Dahlonega, where he teaches computer science.

Ahmed attended Centennial High School through his junior year but the family moved again to Dawsonville. Even though he graduated from Dawson County High, Ahmed took classes at North Georgia during his senior year, commuting to the campus with his father. In 2004, he received a scholarship to attend Georgia Tech and majored in mechanical engineering.

In college, Ahmed became increasingly observant of Islam, regularly attending the Al-Farooq Masjid on 14th Street near the Tech campus. There, he befriended Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, a Roswell man who also is charged in the conspiracy and will tried separately in August.

It was during this time that Ahmed became a militant Muslim who hooked up with like-minded extremists. He intended, he later told federal agents, to prove himself ready to wage jihad.

He also tried to recruit others to go with him to Pakistan where he would immerse himself in the study of Islam and then join a military training camp, federal prosecutors say. In e-mails, Ahmed used code words — "membership" (a passport), "the land of the two rivers" (Iraq), "curry land" (Pakistan), "picnic" (a meeting).

In March 2005, Ahmed and Sadequee took a Greyhound bus to Ontario, Canada, and met with members of the "Toronto 18," suspects charged with plots to overthrow the Canadian Parliament and bomb a power plant and the stock exchange. The young men spoke openly of attacking oil refineries, even trying to disable GPS satellites with lasers.

Ahmed and Sadequee returned to Atlanta and, a month later, drove to Washington where they took 60 videos that even the agents say were of poor quality.

The videos were later found on the computer of Younis Tsouli, a notorious al-Qaida propangandist in London who styled himself "Terrorist 007."

When investigators searched Tsouli's computer in October 2005, they also found instructions for how to make a car bomb and videos of beheadings by al-Qaida terrorists. Tsouli was later sentenced to prison for inciting terrorist acts via the Internet.

Ahmed told federal agents that his Washington-area videos were "stupid." But when pressed, he acknowledged they were to be sent to "jihadi brothers" and could be used for "some kind of terrorist act."

Thinking he had the credibility he needed, Ahmed left Atlanta in July 2005 for Pakistan. One afternoon at a park in Karachi, he met with Abu Umar, who was to provide Ahmed's entrée into a jihadist training camp. But after talking it over with relatives, Ahmed decided against taking that step and returned to Georgia Tech.

Months later, authorities linked Ahmed and Sadequee to videos found on Tsouli's computer. In March 2006, two counterterrorism agents confronted Ahmed at his rental home on Ethel Street near the Tech campus.

Over the course of five tape-recorded interviews spanning 13 hours, the agents played good cop, bad cop with Ahmed. One, a DeKalb County detective who was a Muslim, established a rapport with Ahmed through their shared beliefs. The other, a seasoned FBI agent, berated Ahmed when he was not being straight with them.

In one chilling exchange, Ahmed admitted having designs to commit an act of terror here.

"My intentions were to do something in America," he said. "Yes, attack."

Ultimately, he took agents to his parents' Dawsonville home to retrieve the camera that took the videos in Washington.

On their way into Washington, Ahmed and Sadequee took video of the Pentagon. "This is where our brothers attacked," a reverent Sadequee can be heard saying on the tape.

At trial, Martin, Ahmed's court-appointed lawyer, will remind U.S. District Judge Bill Duffey, who presides as judge and jury, that Ahmed never followed through on his plans

"As he admitted to all the investigators during all his interviews, most of his acts were childish flights of fancy and momentary random thoughts," Martin said. "He was never involved in any serious terrorist plot or action, nor did he ever join up with a terrorist organization."

At a recent hearing, Ahmed said the most important thing to him is to be able to give his statement. Duffey, a former U.S. attorney, said he would allow it but said he would not consider it if it did not connect up with the evidence.

"For me, to deliver it in public is all I care about," Ahmed responded. "I have no problem if you don't consider it."

At that hearing, Ahmed made another show of disdain for the laws of man. He notified Duffey he does not intend to stand after a security officer bellows, "All rise," when the judge enters the courtroom.

If convicted, Ahmed faces a maximum of 15 years in prison.

Until only recently, Ahmed faced a potential sentence of up to 30 years. But when he opted for the bench trial — cutting the anticipated trial from more than a month to about a week — prosecutors decided to try Ahmed on only one conspiracy count.

They are not pursuing three other counts, such as an allegation that Ahmed tried to join and to recruit others to join Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Pakistani-based terrorist group.

In his recent motion, which he wrote in third person, Ahmed said his overwhelming desire is to remain true to his faith.

If this happens, he wrote, "he may be looked favorably upon by God at the end and any hardships that he may encounter due to his conscientious objection to such laws will be insignificant compared to the rewards."