Many Muslims frustrated at Fort Dix verdict
Wednesday, 24 December 2008
ATLANTIC CITY, Dec 23 (AP): Muslim leaders reacted with frustration after five Muslim immigrants were convicted of scheming to massacre U.S. soldiers at Fort Dix.
The five defendants were found guilty Monday in federal court in Camden of conspiring to kill military personnel. But they were acquitted of attempted murder after prosecutors acknowledged the men were probably months away from an attack and did not necessarily have a specific plan.
The arrests in 2007 and subsequent trial tested the FBI's post-Sept. 11 strategy of infiltrating and breaking up terrorist plots in their earliest stages.
"It seemed to me as if the case was pretty flimsy," said James Yee, the former Muslim chaplain at the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba who was arrested in 2003 and charged with mishandling classified material and other crimes in a suspected espionage ring. The criminal charges were later dropped.
Mohamed Younes, president of the Paterson, N.J.-based American Muslim Union, voiced similar sentiments.
The five defendants were found guilty Monday in federal court in Camden of conspiring to kill military personnel. But they were acquitted of attempted murder after prosecutors acknowledged the men were probably months away from an attack and did not necessarily have a specific plan.
The arrests in 2007 and subsequent trial tested the FBI's post-Sept. 11 strategy of infiltrating and breaking up terrorist plots in their earliest stages.
"It seemed to me as if the case was pretty flimsy," said James Yee, the former Muslim chaplain at the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba who was arrested in 2003 and charged with mishandling classified material and other crimes in a suspected espionage ring. The criminal charges were later dropped.
Mohamed Younes, president of the Paterson, N.J.-based American Muslim Union, voiced similar sentiments.