| "Mahmoud Brent"? |
A Maryland man was charged with conspiracy to help a terrorist organization after he boasted that he went to Pakistan, attended terrorist training camps and agreed to provide whatever assistance was necessary, prosecutors said Thursday. Mahmud Faruq Brent, of Gwynn Oak, Md., was charged after a New York musician arrested on similar charges in May agreed to meet with him and let the FBI record the encounter, according to a joint release by federal prosecutors, the FBI and New York police. Brent was charged in a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan with conspiracy to provide material support to the Lashkar-e-Taiba organization, which the United States designated a terrorist organization in December 2001.During the taped conversation at a hotel in Columbia, Md., Brent indicated he had traveled to Pakistan and into the mountains for training "and stuff" with "the mujahideen, the fighters," the release said. He allegedly said that because of "treaties with Bush," it became dangerous for "foreigners" like him to stay in the camps, so he was moved from place to place. Prosecutors said Brent indicated that he would never go back on his decision to go to the training camps operated by Lashkar and that it was "one of the better decisions in my life." He also said he had agreed to provide whatever "assistance" he could there and expressed hope that Allah would bless him for his efforts, according to the release.
The investigation of Brent began, authorities said, after they found an address book with telephone numbers for him when they arrested Tarik Shah, 42, of New York. Brent was being held in Manhattan and was scheduled to appear in court later Thursday. A telephone call to his lawyer was not immediately returned. Shah pleaded not guilty to terrorism charges on June 28, and defense attorney Anthony Ricco called the case against his client "ridiculous."
Shah, a jazz musician and martial arts instructor, was charged with conspiring to provide material support to al-Qaida after allegedly taking a formal oath of loyalty to the group along with Dr. Rafiq Abdus Sabir, 50, who also was arrested in May. According to prosecutors, the two American citizens had sworn the oath as they conspired to use their skills in martial arts and medicine to aid international terrorism. Sabir also has pleaded not guilty. The government said an undercover FBI agent recorded a conversation before Brent's arrest in which Shah mentioned the names of several students including Brent. The government said Shah told the agent that he planned to call Brent, a longtime student, to ask him to help make a demonstration video to be used for martial arts training of holy warriors.
After his arrest, Shah told investigators that he had trained Brent in martial arts while they lived in Beacon, N.Y., in 2001 and that they often watched martial arts training videos and other videos about holy war, or jihad, in Bosnia, the government said. During this period, the government said, Brent introduced Shah to Seifullah Chapman in the Washington, D.C., area. Chapman, of Alexandria, Va., was sentenced in June 2004 to 85 years in prison after he and two others were convicted of training for holy war against the United States by playing paintball games in the Virginia woods.