As Robert Spencer asks on Jihad Watch, "Would you do it for money? For love? Out of a sense of justice? Out of a sense of religious duty? Would you do it because an agent provocateur encouraged you?"
Well, would you?
From KOMO May by Nigel Duara
Well, would you?
From KOMO May by Nigel Duara
Defense: Accused Portland bomb plot teen was coerced
Mohamed Osman Mohamud is seen in a Multnomah County Jail booking photo
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Defense lawyers for a Somali-American teen charged with trying to detonate a bomb at a holiday tree-lighting ceremony say a federal agent tried to coerce him into violence.
Attorneys for Mohamed O. Mohamud said in a filing Friday that emails from an agent known only as "Bill Smith" prove the teen's innocence and show the federal government is not playing fair with the evidence it is supposed to provide.
"The correspondence between Bill Smith and (Mohamud) demonstrates that Smith was acting as an agent provocateur, attempting to encourage (Mohamud) to engage in violent activity in this country," the defense team wrote.
Prosecutors had said in a filing April 7 that the emails did not relate to the facts of the case, and acknowledged that the agent was working for the government, but that the contact was brief.
Mohamud, now 20, has pleaded not guilty to charges of attempting to ignite a weapon of mass destruction at a Nov. 26 Christmas tree-lighting ceremony in Portland, Ore. The FBI has said that its agents were acting as his coconspirators as part of a sting and that there was never a real explosive device.
His defense attorneys, Stephen Sady and Steven Wax, appeared to be launching an entrapment defense in their arguments that the agent's emails show the government shouldn't have control over what evidence it provides to the defense. They said in the filing that the government had given them "voluminous" amounts of emails with "hundreds of lines of distracting code."
Sady and Wax argue that the agent initiated discussions about terrorism in the U.S., and that Mohamud didn't take any action based on that conversation. That, they say, shows that Mohamud wasn't predisposed to violence.
Mohamud's predisposition - his will to commit violence - is key to an entrapment defense. If the defense can show that government agents put the idea of a tree-lighting bombing into Mohamud's head, it enhances their prospects for a successful defense.
Attorneys for Mohamed O. Mohamud said in a filing Friday that emails from an agent known only as "Bill Smith" prove the teen's innocence and show the federal government is not playing fair with the evidence it is supposed to provide.
"The correspondence between Bill Smith and (Mohamud) demonstrates that Smith was acting as an agent provocateur, attempting to encourage (Mohamud) to engage in violent activity in this country," the defense team wrote.
Prosecutors had said in a filing April 7 that the emails did not relate to the facts of the case, and acknowledged that the agent was working for the government, but that the contact was brief.
Mohamud, now 20, has pleaded not guilty to charges of attempting to ignite a weapon of mass destruction at a Nov. 26 Christmas tree-lighting ceremony in Portland, Ore. The FBI has said that its agents were acting as his coconspirators as part of a sting and that there was never a real explosive device.
His defense attorneys, Stephen Sady and Steven Wax, appeared to be launching an entrapment defense in their arguments that the agent's emails show the government shouldn't have control over what evidence it provides to the defense. They said in the filing that the government had given them "voluminous" amounts of emails with "hundreds of lines of distracting code."
Sady and Wax argue that the agent initiated discussions about terrorism in the U.S., and that Mohamud didn't take any action based on that conversation. That, they say, shows that Mohamud wasn't predisposed to violence.
Mohamud's predisposition - his will to commit violence - is key to an entrapment defense. If the defense can show that government agents put the idea of a tree-lighting bombing into Mohamud's head, it enhances their prospects for a successful defense.
Mohamud's will to commit violence came not from the urging of the FBI but from the texts and tenets of Islam, the Qur'an and the traditions of Muhammad.
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2 comments:
So if the defense is correct, then anybody should be able to be influenced by the FBI to carry out such a terrorist attack. Maybe these were the same agents that gave LSD to some ordinary fellow to shoot John Lennon... Or was it the CIA... NSA...
I guess some "american" couldn't possibly want to do such a thing on their own!
"Mohamud's will to commit violence came not from the urging of the FBI but from the texts and tenets of Islam, the Qur'an and the traditions of Muhammad". You're not making any sense. If the suggestions of jihad in Islamic tradition can be blamed for putting ideas into this guy's head, then they FBI can be blamed too - they put the specific idea of blowing up Pioneer Square into him.
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