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U.S. begins third effort to convict six in Liberty City terror case

2009-02-19

In the government’s third effort to convict six Miami men of planning to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago as part of an Islamic jihad, federal prosecutors Wednesday portrayed the group’s ringleader as a man obsessed with overthrowing the United States government. In her opening argument, Assistant United States Attorney Jacqueline Arango told jurors that the ringleader, Narseal Batiste, was a “power-hungry vicious man who wanted to make his mark on the world.” The prosecution has failed twice to convince juries that Mr. Batiste and his followers were serious supporters of terror, with both trials ending in hung juries. Mr. Batiste and five co-defendants face four counts each, including conspiracy to provide material support for terrorism and to wage war against the United States, or sedition. A seventh suspect, Lyglenson Lemorin, was acquitted after the first trial ended in December 2007. Prosecutors said the government would show how the 34-year-old Mr. Batiste recruited the other five defendants to form a “paramilitary and cultlike group” that trained in martial arts and met in a ramshackle warehouse in an impoverished Miami neighborhood known as Liberty City. It was there and at other locales in South Florida, Ms. Arango said, that an F.B.I. informant posing as a member of Al Qaeda met with Mr. Batiste and his followers to discuss providing money and weapons for his group in exchange for helping Al Qaeda carry out attacks in South Florida and elsewhere. While posing as a member of Al Qaeda from Yemen, the informant also secretly videotaped the suspects taking an oath of allegiance to the terror group. In a shift from the first two trials, Ms. Arango appeared to be trying to draw attention to Mr. Batiste’s admiration for a former Chicago gang leader, Jeff Fort, who in 1987 was convicted of conspiring with the Libyan government to carry out terrorist attacks on American soil. Mr. Fort had been mentioned in the earlier trials, but not in opening arguments. On Wednesday, Ms. Arango noted that the informant had secretly recorded Mr. Batiste identifying himself with Mr. Fort and that Mr. Batiste mentioned the Fort case in detail in his first meeting with the informant in a hotel room in December 2006. Mr. Batiste’s lawyer argued that the informant entrapped Mr. Batiste and his followers with the promise of thousands of dollars. “This case is a 100 percent setup; this is a manufactured crime,” the lawyer, Ana M. Jhones, said in her opening argument, which drew several objections from the prosecution, most notably when she remarked that “taking an oath to Al Qaeda is not a crime.

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Prosecutors make a third attempt in Liberty City terror plot

2009-01-27

And the NYT dismisses their chances A group of Miami men accused of planning to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago as part of an Islamic jihad will return to federal court this week as prosecutors try for a third time to win convictions. The government's first two efforts ended in mistrials. And legal analysts say the prosecutors face an even greater challenge this time because, nearly three years after the men were arrested, the public mind-set has changed. "The fear card was what they were playing," said Bruce Winick, a University of Miami law professor. "If it didn't work the first two times with the juries that were selected, I think it's less likely that it will work right now because that fear of terrorism is a little more distant in our minds." Former jurors in the first two cases have said they could not agree in part because of disputes over what some considered a lack of evidence. Prosecutors tried to prove that the original seven defendants, a group of laborers from the tough Liberty City neighborhood, provided "material support" to a terrorist organization, and planned to destroy buildings. But they relied mostly on the men's words, citing their loyalty oath to Al Qaeda and aggressive comments made to two F.B.I. informants. More concrete evidence did not emerge. Testimony showed that a search by the Federal Bureau of Investigation of what it called the group's headquarters did not yield guns, explosives or blueprints for an attack. Besides a samurai sword, no weapons were found. "There was really nothing that indicated that this was a real threat," said Jeffrey Agron, a lawyer who served as the foreman at the first trial in 2007. "Another thing was the credibility of the confidential informants. The first informant, in the minds of most jurors, had no credibility, and with the second informant, a lot of the jurors felt he was trying to lead these guys on." The first trial ended in December 2007 with an acquittal for one of the seven, Lyglenson Lemorin, and a mistrial for the other six: Narseal Batiste, accused of being the ringleader; Patrick Abraham; Burson Augustine; Rotschild Augustine; Naudimar Herrera; and Stanley G. Phanor. The second trial followed a similar path. Each side laid out many of the same arguments, and another jury deadlocked. On April 16, Judge Joan A. Lenard of Federal District Court ordered a mistrial for the second time. About a week later, prosecutors said they would try again. Assistant United States Attorney Richard Gregorie, at a hearing where the decision was announced, said another trial was necessary to "safeguard the community." Mr. Gregorie cited some of the violent comments allegedly made by Mr. Batiste, including a threat to "kill all the devils." Mr. Winick said that no new evidence was expected, and that this would probably be the last trial for a case that he, some former jurors and other legal scholars have seen as politically driven. The timing in particular has attracted scrutiny because the arrests came just a few months before the 2006 elections, and they were widely publicized by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, who outlined the most sensational evidence at a news conference. Mr. Winick said that by that point, "The plot, to the extent there was a plot at that point, was falling apart," suggesting that it would have made more sense to continue observing the group, rather than making arrests. Winning a conviction at this point, he and others said, will be difficult. "I don't see it ending any differently than before," said Mr. Agron, the former juror. Mr. Winick agreed. "It's a case where a government informant got a bunch of guys together to swear a loyalty oath to Al Qaeda," he said. "It's a B movie really, more than a criminal case."

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Terror suspect's wife claims husband rejected group

2008-08-28

The wife of a Haitian immigrant facing deportation despite his acquittal on terrorism charges testified Wednesday that she and her husband quit a Liberty City religious group the government claims plotted attacks on Chicago's Sears Tower because of disagreements with its spiritual teachings and authoritarianism. Charlene Mingo Lemorin -- testifying for the first time in the long-running case -- told an immigration judge that she never heard her husband, Lyglenson Lemorin, or any of the group's leaders or members speak about ''jihad'' or any terrorist action. Instead, Mingo told U.S. Immigration Judge Kenneth S. Hurwitz that she and her husband objected to alleged group ringleader Narseal Batiste's advocacy of polygamy, as well as his urging they distance themselves from friends and family. ''We saw many things we didn't like about their teaching and the way they were leading us, and we started pulling back,'' Mingo said, speaking so softly that at one point the judge had to ask her to move her chair closer to the court's recording microphone. Lemorin, 33, was acquitted of terrorism conspiracy by a federal jury in December, but the U.S. government placed the legal U.S. resident in deportation proceedings on virtually the same charges. The standard of proof in immigration court is lower than the ''beyond a reasonable doubt'' threshold that applies in criminal trials. Batiste and the five remaining defendants in the so-called Liberty City 7 case face a third trial in January after two hung juries. Lemorin's attorneys have called Batiste to testify next week to bolster their contention that their client was only marginally involved in the group, and left after Batiste began talking about an alliance with al Qaeda and attacks. They also plan to call Lemorin, who did not testify in his criminal trial, to the stand in Hurwitz's courtroom at the Krome immigration detention center, where he is detained. As in the criminal trial, lawyers for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have pinned a significant portion of their case on an ''oath'' to al Qaeda that group members took at the behest of Batiste. Lemorin told investigators that he was ''tricked'' into the oath. Mingo said she was ''shocked, shocked!'' to learn of the alleged oath on TV news after Lemorin and the other six men were arrested in June 2006, and said she doesn't believe her husband took it willingly. By then, the couple and their three children were living in Atlanta, where they went to get away from Batiste's group, she said. They chose Atlanta because Lemorin has a sister there and it offered a better family environment than Miami, she said. Mingo said they accepted Batiste as a mentor for spiritual reasons and were initially excited by his teachings.

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Sears Tower Terror Jury Told to Work On

2007-12-11

MIAMI (AP) - Jurors said Monday they were still deadlocked in the trial of seven men accused of plotting with al-Qaida to blow up Chicago's Sears Tower and bomb FBI offices, but a federal judge ordered the panel to continue deliberating. U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard denied a defense request for a mistrial. ``It is your duty to agree upon a verdict if you can do so,'' Lenard told the jurors, who have debated the group's guilt or innocence for six days at the end of a two-month trial. The panel of six men and six women met for three more hours Monday without concluding the case and were ordered to resume work Tuesday. Jurors sent a second note Monday to the judge indicating they were unable to reach a unanimous verdict against any of the ``Liberty City Seven,'' named for the Miami neighborhood out of which they are accused of operating. A similar note had been issued Thursday. Lenard has refused to publicly release the contents of the notes or allow them to be read in court. ``The trial has been expensive in time, effort, money and emotional strain to both the defense and the prosecution. If you should fail to agree upon a verdict, the case will be left open and may have to be tried again,'' Lenard told the jury in a set of instructions known as an Allen charge. Lenard did not specify how long deliberations might continue. If jurors cannot reach a verdict, the U.S. Justice Department would have to decide whether to try the case again, drop the charges or negotiate plea agreements with some or all the men. Federal prosecutors took no position on whether a mistrial should be declared. The seven defendants each face as many as 70 years in prison if convicted on all four terrorism-related conspiracy charges. The case is built mainly on meetings between the group's leader, 33-year-old Narseal Batiste, and a pair of paid FBI informants. There was no evidence the men had acquired any explosives or even had a definitive plan for attacks But some in the group took reconnaissance photos and video of the Miami FBI office and other federal buildings, and all seven took an oath of allegiance to al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden that was recorded by federal agents.

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'Miami group accused in Sears Tower plot was primed for holy war'

2007-10-31

A group of men accused of plotting to destroy Chicago's Sears Tower were in the final stages of forming a homegrown terrorist cell dedicated to waging an Islamic holy war before they were arrested, a prosecution terrorism expert testified in a Miami courtroom Tuesday. Raymond Tanter, a Georgetown University professor and terrorism scholar for 40 years, said suspected ringleader Narseal Batiste and the other six had nearly completed the "radicalization process" and moved toward acts of terrorism before their arrests in June 2006. Hallmarks of this process include religious conversion, operation within a military-style hierarchy and adoption of goals shared by al-Qaida and other terrorist groups to destroy US landmarks, Tanter said. The final stage - which he called "jihadization" - means the group is ready to plan, recruit and prepare for an attack. Evidence introduced at trial shows that Batiste "was talking only about violent jihad" and not other meanings of the Arabic word, such as self-examination, Tanter said.

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Terror figure heard urging strike against Sears Tower

2007-10-06

The alleged leader of a group accused of plotting terrorist attacks in the US repeatedly mentioned the Sears Tower as a target in a videotaped conversation with a paid FBI informant shown in court Friday. Narseal Batiste mentions the Chicago skyscraper, along with the Empire State Building in New York City and a National Guard armory in northern Miami as potential attack sites. His comments are caught in surveillance video filmed in the apartment of Abbas al Saidi, a Yemeni national who Batiste believed was connected with al-Qaida but actually was working for the FBI.

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Trial Begins for 7 Accused of Plotting to Destroy Sears Tower

2007-10-03

Narseal Batiste cut a striking figure on Miami's toughest streets. He sometimes wore a white turban and carried a six-foot staff. He proselytized to the homeless and drug dealers. He and his followers recruited others to join them for Bible and Koran studies at their meeting place, a ramshackle storefront they called "The Temple." "Narseal Batiste could only be characterized as a wannabe religious leader," his attorney, Ana M. Jhones, said Tuesday. Now the question before a jury is whether Batiste, 33, was more than that, whether he and his rag-tag group of six followers seriously intended to ally themselves with al-Qaeda and to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago -- or whether they were just pretending. As outlined in opening statements Tuesday, the prosecution's case is based upon months of work by two paid FBI informants, identified as Abbas al-Saidi and Elie Assad, who presented themselves to Batiste and his followers as having terrorist connections. The key piece of evidence is a videotape from March 2006 showing one of the informants leading the seven defendants in a purported oath of allegiance to al-Qaeda. "These defendants wanted to wage jihad against the United States, and they tell us so in unequivocal detail," Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Gregorie told jurors. But in their opening statements, the defense attorneys said that their clients had only feigned interest in terrorism to win the $50,000 that the FBI informants, posing as al-Qaeda representatives, were dangling before them. Despite a wealth of wiretaps and videotapes made of the defendants, the defense noted, there is scant evidence that the men expressed any interest in al-Qaeda when they were not in the presence of the informants -- indicating that it was only an act tailored to that audience. The defense depicted the FBI's two informants as "con men" trying to make money from the government by creating a terrorism case -- even if it meant provoking a somewhat hapless, financially strapped group of men into showing an interest in terrorism. The evidence gathered, prosecutors said, includes not only the videotape of the oath, but recordings including references to putting poison in restaurant saltshakers and starting a street war in the United States climaxed by the explosions of landmark buildings. The men, several of whom worked in construction trades and were relatively poor, also conducted martial arts training at the Temple, which was located in the impoverished Liberty City neighborhood, using knives, swords and "nunchucks," prosecutors said. "They say the war has to be fought here. And it can't be just a bombing. It's got to be chaos," Gregorie told jurors. Batiste had aligned himself with a group known as the Moorish Science Temple of America, which in Miami, at least, blended the teachings of Islam, Christianity and Judaism. The men -- Batiste, Patrick Abraham, Stanley Phanor, Naudimar Herrera, Burson Augustin, Lyglenson Lemorin and Rotschild Augustine -- have been charged with conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and conspiracy to destroy buildings by explosives. To defense attorneys, those charges are based on acts created by the lure of $50,000 -- it was too much for some of the men to pass up. "There was a dual con going on in this case," Jhones told jurors. That is, while the FBI informants were pretending to the defendants that they represented terrorists, the defendants were in turn pretending that they were inclined to join in, the defense said. Batiste "made it up as he went along. All he wanted to do is get his money and run, and who better to do this to than . . . al-Qaeda?" Jhones said.

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Miami men 'plotted to overthrow US'

2007-10-02

Seven men plotted to bring down the US government by poisoning saltshakers and bombing landmark buildings, a prosecutor told Miami jurors as their terrorism conspiracy trial opened today. The "Liberty City Seven" aimed to create chaos as part of a holy war to pave the way for al-Qaeda-affiliated guerrillas to take over the United States, Assistant US Lawyer Richard Gregorie said in the prosecution's opening statement. "We need to make the people go crazy in the streets," Mr Gregorie quoted alleged ringleader Narseal Batiste as saying. "Allah is going to take over through us." Defence lawyers said the charges were "nonsense" scripted by the government and orchestrated by paid FBI informants they called Conman No.1 and Conman No.2. They said the defendants, one of whom was devoted mainly to smoking marijuana, had no weapons or intent to do violence and that it was the informants who suggested poisoning restaurant saltshakers and blowing up buildings. The "Liberty City Seven," named for the poor part of Miami where they gathered in a rundown warehouse, were arrested in 2006 on charges of plotting to blow up Chicago's 110-story Sears Tower - the tallest US skyscraper - along with several FBI offices and the Miami federal court complex where they are on trial. The young men face up to 70 years in prison if convicted on all four conspiracy counts in a case government officials have touted as an important victory in the war against terrorism. But federal agents said when they were arrested that the group's plans were "aspirational rather than operational" and posed no real threat because they had neither al-Qaeda contacts nor means of carrying out attacks. The government's main evidence is drawn from 15,000 audio and videotaped conversations made by the informants. One infiltrated the group and introduced the other, a purported al-Qaeda operative from Yemen, as a friend of his uncle. "Unknown to Mr Batiste, it's Uncle Sam," Gregorie said. Batiste's lawyer, Ana Jhones, portrayed him as a would-be religious leader who aspired to big things but lacked intellect and ability. He pretended to go along with the informants, she said, because he was trying to con them out of $US50,000 ($56,000) to turn the decrepit warehouse into a community gathering place.

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Two Views of Terror Suspects: Die-Hards or Dupes

2006-07-01

The seven men who were arrested here last week on terror charges were shown Friday on undercover videotapes solemnly reciting oaths of loyalty to Al Qaeda, repeating the words that an F.B.I. informant had given them to say. The tapes, played at a federal court hearing by prosecutors, did not provide any evidence that the men had the money or firepower to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago and federal buildings in five cities, as they are accused of conspiring to do, or that they had any actual ties to Al Qaeda. But during her presentation, the prosecutor, Jacqueline M. Arango, disclosed other new details of the case, among them that the group's leader, Narseal Batiste, had asked the undercover informant for rockets and semiautomatic rifles. Lawyers for some of the men said in interviews this week that their clients knew little about Mr. Batiste's plans to attack the Sears Tower. Some of the lawyers criticized the new evidence presented Friday as a sign that the government had largely concocted other parts of the case and had lured the men into doing more than they would have on their own. "It's clearly a case of entrapment," said Nathan Clark, the lawyer for one of the defendants, Rotschild Augustine. Mr. Clark said the taped oath was "induced by the government." The tapes, in fact, made clear the large role that the government informant had played in the case. In one tape, the informant recited what F.B.I. agents said was an authentic Qaeda oath, while the seven men sat on a sofa and chairs in a warehouse that the F.B.I. had wired with eavesdropping equipment. As the informant repeated the words for a second time, each defendant stood and stated his name before they all said in unison that they were committing themselves to the "path of jihad."

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Terror Suspects Reportedly Had FBI Targets

2006-06-29

they may be crazy cultists, but they think big. One of 7 men accused of plotting to blow up the Sears Tower admitted to being a member of the group that swore allegiance to al-Qaida, and told investigators it planned to bomb five FBI buildings, a prosecutor said Thursday. Lyglenson Lemorin, a Haitian national, also admitted to attending military training in Miami and other parts of Florida to carry out the mission, Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Getchell said during Lemorin's hearing before a U.S. magistrate. Lemorin is one of seven men suspected in the terror plot who were arrested last week at the group's alleged hide-out in a Miami warehouse. Getchell said the alleged ringleader, Narseal Batiste, told an FBI informant who posed as an al-Qaida member that with the terror group's support, he could get his plans going in less than a year. At repeated meetings with the informant, Batiste said he admired Osama bin Laden, was honored an excited that al-Qaida would align itself with his group and said he had members in Chicago and Louisiana, Getchell said. Authorities have said the seven men accused of trying to blow up the Sears Tower with help from al-Qaida never actually made contact with the terrorist network, and were instead caught in an FBI sting involving an informant who posed as an al-Qaida operative. According to Getchell, Batiste was planning to take down the Sears Tower with dynamite. Batiste allegedly said he had worked in Chicago for a delivery firm and could count on former employees there to help plan the attack through the underground tunnel system in Chicago. The prosecution asked that Lemorin be granted no bond. Getchell said that even if bond were granted, Lemorin would be taken into custody by immigration authorities. Although he's a lawful permanent resident he can be deported based on his admitted alignment with a foreign terrorist organization.

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Leaders say accused bombers not Muslim

2006-06-25

SEVEN men arrested in the US for planning to blow up America's tallest building and FBI offices were not Muslims and not linked to the US Islamic community, Islamic leaders insisted yesterday. The suspects - five Americans and two foreigners - arrested on Thursday after approaching an undercover FBI agent who they thought was an agent of al-Qaeda, were described as a cult. They were accused of trying to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago with help from al-Qaeda. But authorities said the men never actually made contact with the terrorist network and were instead caught in an FBI sting involving an informant who posed as an al-Qaeda operative. Federal prosecutors said the men, who operated out of a warehouse in Liberty City, a poor section of Miami, took an oath to al-Qaeda and plotted to create an "Islamic army" bent on violence against the US. The charges stated that the group, calling itself the "Seas of David", had studied the Sears Tower and other buildings as possible targets. Those arrested ranged in age from 22 to 32 and included an immigrant from Haiti and a Haitian who was in the US illegally. Group leader Narseal Batiste told the undercover agent he was "organising a mission to wage jihad". Batiste requested money, boots, uniforms, machine-guns, radios and vehicles. The suspects were not Muslims, local Islamic leaders said. "As far as we are concerned they have no relation with our community, their ideology has nothing in common with the ideology of Islam and they should not be called Muslim," said Ahmed Bedier, of the Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "This seems like some sort of cult group."

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Fifth Column

Miami Terror Cell: Just Boys With Violent Fantasies?

2006-06-24

Defence attornies are bleating: but they didn't actually do anything. Just planned? Isn't that what bin Laden did? Yada, yada, yada. They thought they were joining al Qaeda, but they were not. They were led by a ''Moses-like figure'' who carried a cane through Liberty City and wore a cape or sometimes a bathrobe. They allegedly sought to sow death and terror, and they ended up in leg irons. The seven men arrested in an alleged terrorist plot believed they were conspiring with al Qaeda ''to levy war against the United States'' in attacks that would ''be just as good or greater than 9/11,'' according to a federal indictment unsealed Friday. The campaign was to begin with the bombing of the 110-story Sears Tower in Chicago, according to the indictment, though an FBI sting foiled the plot long before it reached that point. Also discussed were attacks against federal buildings in Miami, officials said, and four other cities not identified in the charging documents. ''Individuals in America made plans to hurt Americans,'' U.S. Attorney General Albert Gonzales said during a news conference in Washington. But that's where it stopped -- with plans, authorities said. Which means the FBI shouldn't have arrested them, of course. No need to do that until they're driving a rental truck filled with ammonium nitrate northbound on the Dan Ryan expressway. The men, allegedly led by Narseal Batiste, each swore an oath of fidelity to al Qaeda called a bayat but never met with an authentic representative of the group responsible for the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, according to authorities... Download DOJ indictment here.

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