Syed Haris Ahmed was a terrorist wannabe. He's already admitted to that. The former Georgia Tech student contemplated an attack on Dobbins Air Reserve Base, but didn't carry it out. He traveled to Pakistan hoping to die a martyr fighting alongside brother jihadists -- but changed his mind and returned home. He took almost laughably bad "casing videos" of Washington landmarks, taping surreptitiously through his pickup truck window in a city where tourists overtly take pictures of everything.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."