There were two Tarek Mehannas on the morning of his arrest at his parents' suburban home.One, the meek and mild college graduate who the Mehanna family, friends and neighbors saw. The other, a terrorist who conspired against the U.S. that the government saw.
Yesterday, there were still two Mehannas.
He is
He is
The bearded
| OK, I'll knock it off. |
In the hearing that included lawyers J.W. Carney Jr. and Janice Bassil's motion to grant bail for Mehanna, Bassil spun a tale of a
When Mehanna was arrested in 2009, federal officials said he wanted to shoot people at malls and made plans to kill two politicians. Those charges were not in the indictment released last year. In that indictment, Mehanna and Ahmad Abousamara, believed to be in Syria, were charged with giving "material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization." According to the indictment, Mehanna was a "media wing" for al Qaeda.
"For some reason, the shopping mall thing is still floating around, even though it's not in the indictment," said Mohamed Bahe of New York while he took out "Free Tarek" T-shirts in front of the courthouse. The fact it's not in the indictment "shows me it was fabricated," Bahe said. Bahe adds that he's known Mehanna for "a long time," and claimed that Mehanna was kicked out of Islamic web forums for being too moderate. "They labeled him as a modernist."
Inside the courtroom, Bassil told the judge Mehanna "we're fighting about words" Mehanna used in instant messages taken out of context. She called the case paper thin.
Chakravarty said that the defendant not only translated 39 Ways to
He said a witness will testify Mehanna, Abousamra and a third co-conspirator explored a plan to murder people at a mall, but dismissed the plan as "impractical."
Prosecutors say that in 2004 Mehanna and Abousamra traveled to Yemen in hopes of attending a terrorist training camp, which also ended in failure. That's when Mehanna turned to using his skills to spread al Qaeda's messages on the internet.
Whether this is true will be up to a jury to decide next fall.
Will they see the Mehanna prosecutors see? A man who wants infidels killed? A man who laughs when he visits Ground Zero.
Or will they see the Mehanna his supporters see? A man who has been railroaded because of his religion? A man whose words have been misrepresented?
Meanwhile, the judge will have to decide which Mehanna he sees: The one who deserves bail or the one who cannot be set free.