Siraj Is Guilty in a Victory For the City

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The New York Sun

The conviction of a radical Muslim in a plot to bomb Manhattan’s Herald Square subway station is being hailed as a victory in New York City’s war on terrorism.

After deliberating for nearly two days, a federal jury in Brooklyn yesterday found Shahawar Matin Siraj, 23, guilty of a four-count conspiracy to place a bomb in the subway station near Macy’s at 34th Street. Police arrested Siraj, and a co-conspirator, on August 27, 2004, days before the city hosted the Republican National Convention.

Sentencing guidelines call for the judge, Nina Gershon of U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, to sentence Siraj to anywhere between five years and life in prison.

“Thanks to the diligent work of law enforcement, the plot never developed beyond the planning stage,” the U.S. attorney whose office handled the case, Roslynn Mauskopf, said in a statement following the verdict. “This case demonstrates our unwavering commitment to ensure that we stop terrorist plans before they become terrorist acts.”

During the five-week trial, the case that assistant U.S. attorneys Todd Harrison and Marshall Miller presented offered a record of the New York Police Department’s efforts to fight terrorism. Before police knew of a plot, the department already possessed detailed reports of Siraj’s political views and his often violent and inflammatory statements, which recorded his satisfaction at the loss of the space shuttle Columbia and his support for Osama bin Laden. Through his job at an Islamic bookstore in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, Siraj had unknowingly come into contact with both an undercover police officer and a confidential informant who had infiltrated a Bay Ridge mosque. Both the officer and the informant testified at his trial about the reports they made back to their police handlers.

“The verdict is an important milestone in safeguarding New York against terrorist plotters whether homegrown or foreign,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said in a statement issued yesterday. He congratulated the police officers “who stopped the worst from happening,” and the prosecutors “who made certain justice was pursued.”

At the first mention of guilty, Siraj’s eyes closed and his head tilted forward. His mother and his uncle, who were both present, greeted the verdict with silence. His father was not present, as he was working Siraj’s old shift at the Islamic Books and Tapes bookstore, where Siraj had done much of his plotting.

The bookstore is located next to a mosque, the Islamic Society of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn where Siraj often prayed. From his position behind the glass counter, Siraj hosted a mix of police informants and young radical Muslim men. The discussions ranged from empathizing with suicide bombers in Israel to the conspiracy theory that the American government was behind the September 11, 2001, attacks.

Siraj’s legal team had argued that Siraj, an immigrant from Pakistan, was not predisposed to terrorism until he met the confidential informant in late 2003. An attorney for Siraj, Martin Stolar, said that the informant, a 50-year old naturalized citizen, had received about $100,000 for his work with the NYPD. The informant, Osama Eldawoody, stoked in Siraj a hatred for America, his lawyers argued.

Mr. Eldawoody proved to be at the center of the government’s case. Over eight days of testimony, Mr. Eldawoody, who once studied nuclear engineering in Egypt, fostered a friendship with Siraj and tape-recorded hours of conversation as he drove Siraj home in the evenings from the bookstore in Brooklyn to Queens. Over the course of those recorded conversations, excerpts of which were played to the jury, Siraj inquired about the possibility of obtaining nuclear material for a bomb and spoke vaguely of attacking either the U.S. Army or identifying a target that would harm the economy.

Siraj, who testified for two days in his own defense, said that he came up with the specific plan to bomb Herald Square out of jealousy. Mr. Eldawoody, Siraj said, had praised his friend, James Elshafay, after his friend had announced his plan to bomb bridges and police precincts on Staten Island. Elshafay, who was arrested on the same day as Siraj, pleaded guilty to the Herald Square conspiracy in late 2004. Siraj often switched trains at Herald Square on his route to work in Brooklyn from his home in Queens.

Siraj, who reconnoitered the Herald Square station frequently, planned to place explosives possibly in a garbage can or beneath a bench, he testified. He never possessed any explosives, and authorities have said he was under the impression that the confidential informant would ultimately supply them.

Attorneys for Siraj and his relatives have described him as witless and impressionable.

As he waited during jury deliberations on Tuesday, Siraj’s uncle, Saleem Noorali, said, in an interview, “He’s my nephew, but he’s not too bright…. He’s not dangerous, he just talks.”

During his testimony, Siraj expressed regret for the plan, at times stating that Mr. Eldawoody, the informer, had never told him that the bomb plot was wrong. He said that on August 21, when he, Mr. Eldawoody, and Elshafay conducted a dry run of the bombing, he tried in a variety of ways to back out of the plan.

“This was a manufactured crime,” his attorney, Mr. Stolar, said, following the verdict. “It may not have met the legal standards, but this is not somebody who is a terrorist.”

Outside of the presence of the jury, Mr. Stolar has told the judge in the case, Nina Gershon of U.S. District Court, that he believed the police department violated its rules by sending informants and officers into mosques as part of their surveillance.

Another of Siraj’s attorneys, Khurrum Wahid, said, following the verdict: “Instead of pitting resources into helping them assimilate, we spend resources entrapping them. It’s disgusting.”

Both Siraj and Elshafay, the co-conspirator, have been held in federal prison in Brooklyn. Siraj is scheduled for sentencing October 5. Elshafay, a diagnosed schizophrenic, had testified that he has left radical Islam since his imprisonment and now prays with a Jewish prayer book. He has not been sentenced.


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