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| Closing arguments in NYC subway trial |
| 2006-05-23 |
| A prosecutor at the trial of a Pakistani immigrant charged with plotting to blow up the Herald Square subway station used his closing argument yesterday to urge the jurors to ask themselves a question: How would they react if someone who shared their anger and passion about a closely held political opinion suggested that they bomb a busy subway station to get their point across? The prosecutor, Todd Harrison, an assistant United States attorney, told the jurors he believed that each of them, whether the opinion was about the war in Iraq, the Abu Ghraib prison scandal or the new Medicare plan, would say, "Are you crazy?" "I've got political opinions, but I don't think putting a bomb in crowded subway system in New York City is the way to go," Mr. Harrison said, adding what he thought the jurors would answer: "Thanks, but no thanks." Mr. Harrison said the four-week trial in Brooklyn federal court boiled down to that simple question and suggested that the jurors use their common sense today, when they begin to weigh the fate of the man charged in the plot, Shahawar Matin Siraj, 23. One of Mr. Siraj's lawyers, Martin R. Stolar, sought to present a more complex picture in his closing argument. He contended that the plot was driven by a paid police informer, a 50-year-old Egyptian-born man he had sought to portray throughout the trial as a canny and greedy manipulator and the real mastermind. It was the informer, he said, who treated the younger man like a son and entrapped him by inflaming his political passions with pictures from Abu Ghraib and talk of abuses of Muslims in America and in the Middle East. He said that his client was not "the brightest bulb in the chandelier" and that it was the informer, Osama Eldawoody, who had convinced him that it was his duty as a Muslim to wage jihad against the American economy, though he urged him to avoid killing. "The problem here is the firebrand who stirred the pot is a government agent, not some stranger or imam," Mr. Stolar told the jury during his two-hour summation. "And the law does not allow the government to create a crime; it just is not permitted. That is why the defense of entrapment exists." Throughout the arguments, Mr. Siraj appeared downcast, seated between two of his three lawyers. His fingers were laced together on the defense table, and he was wearing a blue pinstripe suit and a light gray open-collared shirt. His mother, who prayed in the courtroom hallway during much of the trial, fingering light-green prayer beads and sometimes chanting, sat in the back row of the courtroom, rocking slightly back and forth. In his opening statement at the trial, Mr. Stolar had acknowledged that his client had taken part in the plot along with another man and Mr. Eldawoody, a nuclear engineer who secretly recorded more than 30 hours of conversations, mostly with Mr. Siraj. The other man, James Elshafay, 21, pleaded guilty and testified against Mr. Siraj. Mr. Stolar has argued that the government manufactured the crime, noting that Mr. Eldawoody had told the two men that he was part of a nonexistent terrorist group and would supply the explosives. Mr. Stolar stressed to the jury that if they found that his client was not predisposed to commit an act of violence, they should find him not guilty. Mr. Stolar conceded that many of the statements his client made on the recordings were "despicable stuff" — the young man praised Osama bin Laden and the 9/11 attacks, said he approved of suicide bombings in Israel and Palestine and repeatedly talked about killing Jews. "But the verdict you make is not because you dislike the man, it's because you follow the law," he said. "If your verdict sheet could say 'reluctantly not guilty,' that's the box I want you to check." Earlier in the day, another prosecutor, Marshall Miller, hammered away at Mr. Siraj's entrapment defense. He detailed statements by Mr. Siraj that he said undercut the argument that he was not predisposed to violence before he met Mr. Eldawoody. Mr. Miller cited the testimony of an undercover detective who had frequented the Islamic bookstore where Mr. Siraj worked nearly a year before the young man first met Mr. Eldawoody in September 2003. The detective, who wrote dozens of reports about his conversations with Mr. Siraj, was called to rebut the testimony of Mr. Siraj, who testified that he had never talked about violent jihad or support for terrorism until he met Mr. Eldawoody. The detective, testifying under a pseudonym, recounted statement after statement that Mr. Siraj had made long before he met the informer, including saying that he hoped Al Qaeda operatives would attack America again and that he would carry out a suicide bombing for revenge if someone killed his family. The detective quoted Mr. Siraj in one of his reports as saying that bin Laden "was a talented brother and a great planner" and said he hoped he "planned something big for America." Mr. Miller told the jurors they had heard "conversation after conversation of the defendant spouting violent jihad and describing his own violent activities" long before he met Mr. Eldawoody. Addressing the entrapment defense directly, he argued that the prosecution of Mr. Siraj was justified because he was disposed to carrying out an attack. "If there are people out there who are ready and willing to bomb the subway system, then law enforcement should be out there trying to arrest them before attacks happen," he said. Mr. Stolar dismissed the government's arguments about his client's statements, saying that just because Mr. Siraj said he could understand suicide bombings in Israel, that does not mean "he is predisposed to blowing up a subway station in New York." "It's his First Amendment right to have and express that opinion," Mr. Stolar said. "It does not mean that it makes him disposed toward killing or a violent crime." |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #1 How would they react if someone who shared their anger and passion about a closely held political opinion suggested that they bomb a busy subway station to get their point across? That depends is the subway station in balochistan? They dont have subways or stations or roads or running water or electricity or much of anything in Balochistan. Oh thats Ok we dont believe in killing innocents anyway, do you? INFIDEL! INFIDEL! may allah smite you with his mighty meaty mightyness you profane the very ground you walk on, you refuse jihad. Yeah yeah whatever, thats OK we vote. |
| Posted by: pihkalbadger 2006-05-23 19:30 |