Ferik Duka said last week that he had brought his family to the United States nearly 25 years ago for a better life. Once, he thought he had found it. Now, he and his wife, Zurata, sit in a federal courtroom in Camden each day watching and listening as their three oldest children, sons Dritan, 29, Shain, 27, and Eljvir, 25, stand trial on allegations that they plotted a jihad-inspired attack on Fort Dix.The charges, Ferik Duka said, are ridiculous; his sons are not guilty. "I'm confident in the American justice system," he said. "My sons are innocent." So he sits in the fourth-floor courtroom, dressed in a sports coat over either a shirt and tie or a turtleneck, his thick arms folded in front of him, watching the system work. His wife, wearing a head scarf, is always by his side. Occasionally other family members - a son and daughter born in the United States, a daughter-in-law, grandchildren - attend the sessions.
When the defendants enter the courtroom, the relatives smile and nod. When court ends promptly at 4:30 p.m. each day, they wait for the jury to exit, then exchange nods, smiles and waves again as the Duka brothers and their codefendants, Mohamad Shnewer and Serdar Tatar, are led away by U.S. marshals. All five have been held without bail since their arrests in May 2007. All five are foreign-born Muslims who were raised in the Cherry Hill area. Eljvir Duka is married to one of Shnewer's sisters. All face life in prison if convicted.
Ferik Duka, 61, shook his head at that prospect and then talked about better times. Standing on the steps of the federal courthouse on Market Street one morning during a break in the trial, the burly roofing contractor lit a cigarette and told the story of his coming to America. "I came . . . because we heard a lot of good things," he said. "Freedom of speech, democracy, opportunity. And it was true. I chose America because of those things."
It was 1984. He had left Yugoslavia, where, he said, there was little work and less opportunity, especially for ethnic Albanians like himself. To this day their immigration status remains murky. The government has labeled them illegal immigrants. But Ferik Duka said he had a lawyer and had been trying for years to straighten out his status. "I came in illegally, but since 1985 I have been applying" for legal status, he said. "I work. I pay taxes."
Duka operates a roofing and construction business out of his home on Mimosa Drive. His three oldest sons worked with him. They are religious, he said, but not fanatical. "For Muslims, it is not easy to live in the United States," he said. "But still, it is better than in Muslim countries. We are not extremists, not terrorists." They are, he said with no little pride, "Albanians."
"We do not have a history of terrorism," he said. "We fight man to man." And, he said, all Albanians are grateful to the United States for coming to their aid in the war with Serbia and for ending the ethnic cleansing that cost tens of thousands of Muslim lives. It was against that backdrop that Duka offered his assessment of the case against his sons. The charges, he said, are built around the lies of two FBI informants, Mahmoud Omar and Besnik Bakalli.
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