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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe new witch trials? Damned if you do, damned if you don't
http://privacysos.org/node/551A young Muslim man told FBI provocateurs 'no way' when they tried to get him to buy a gun and travel to Pakistan for "jiahdi" training. And guess what happened next?
The FBI arrested him anyway.
The story of the FBI and Khalifah al-Akili is really something. As far as the Guardian tells it, it goes like this:
al-Akili gets approached by a couple of guys who ask him to buy a gun and say they can help him get to Pakistan to train for jihad. al-Akili says no thanks, but he gets one of the guys' phone numbers.
He goes home and searches Google for any reference to the phone number. Bam! He gets a hit -- a worrying hit.
The search returned a reference to the case of the Newburgh Four, where an FBI confidential informant called Shahed Hussain helped secure the convictions of four men for attempting to blow up Jewish targets in the Bronx.
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LINK TO GUARDIAN STORY
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/26/taliban-sympathiser-arrest-fbi-informant-tactics/print
'Taliban sympathiser' arrest prompts new questions about FBI tactics
The arrest of a Pittsburgh man described as a Taliban sympathiser has sparked allegations that the FBI deployed a notorious confidential informant used in previous controversial stings on suspected Muslim radicals.
Khalifah al-Akili, 34, was arrested in a police raid on his home on March 15. He was later charged with illegally possessing a gun after having previous felony convictions for drug dealing. However, at his court appearance an FBI agent testified that al-Akili had made radical Islamic statements and that police had uncovered unspecified jihadist literature at his home.
But, in a strange twist, al-Akili's arrest came just days after he had sent out an email to friends and local Muslim civil rights groups complaining that he believed he was the target of an FBI "entrapment" sting. That refers to a controversial FBI tactic of using confidential informants who often have criminal records or are paid large sums of money to facilitate "fake" terrorist plots for suspects to invent or carry out.
In the email which was also sent to the Guardian before al-Akili was arrested he detailed meeting two men he believed were FBI informants because of the way they talked about radical Islam and appeared to want to get him to make jihadist statements. According to his account, one of them, who called himself Saeed Torres, asked him to buy a gun. Al-Aikili said he refused. The other, who was called Mohammed, offered to help him go to Pakistan for possible Islamic radical training. Al-Akili also refused.
Solly Mack
(90,800 posts)ck4829
(35,096 posts)This is crazy.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)I wonder why they did not give up on him, happy to learn that people are not interested in hurting other people? What is their mindset? It's incomprehensible to me what they hoped to achieve.
cynatnite
(31,011 posts)People who had not done anything wrong were pointed out by someone with an ax to grind. They would get arrested and suffered the whole rendition nightmare. They would go to secret prisons or Gitmo.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)At the press conference, al-Akili would have narrated how several months ago, he met a man who called himself Shareef, who would attend dawn prayers at an area mosque and, according to a National Coalition statement, would with increasing frequency [turn] the conversation to fighting. Shareef would repeatedly ask al-Akili to help him obtain a gun, which al-Akili refused to do (Arrest of Muslim One Day before He Was to Participate in a NCPCF Press Conference, 21 March 2012).
Shareef promised to help al-Akili finance a restaurant if al-Akili would do something for him, which al-Akili understood to mean some act of violence against others, according to the statement. Al-Akili tried to avoid the man, but this proved difficult as Shareef lived only two blocks away.
The National Coalition adds: When Shareef offered to introduce al-Akili to a man he called his brother, al-Akili tried to evade the meeting, but as he was walking back to his apartment from the store one night, Shareef pulled his vehicle up to al-Akili. A man got out of the passenger side, introduced himself as Mohammed, and said that he wanted to talk to al-Akili over coffee. Al-Akili made excuses, but when he got home the phone began to ring; it was Shareef and Mohammed downstairs, wanting to come in. Al-Akili pretended not to be at home.
Mohammed would again appear out of nowhere, insisting that al-Akili meet him. Al-Akili took down his phone number and would eventually run a Google search of it. This is how he found out that Mohammed was actually Shahed Hussain, an undercover FBI operative.
http://electronicintifada.net/content/undercover-persecution-muslim-americans/11164?utm_source=EI+readers&utm_campaign=cff6967de7-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email
muriel_volestrangler
(101,411 posts)http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/FBI-informant-in-upstate-stings-including-3414108.php
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)amounts of money which trumps everything else.
For what they did to this man, I sincerely hope they are prosecuted.