Mass. Man Arrested in Terrorism Case

[Bailey]

By ABBY GOODNOUGH and LIZ ROBBINS
Published: October 21, 2009

BOSTON — A pharmacist living with his parents in the suburbs of Boston was arrested on Wednesday on federal terrorism charges. He was accused of conspiring to attack people at a shopping mall in the United States, and to attack two members of the executive branch of the federal government.

The man, Tarek Mehanna, 27, was charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists. The conspiracy occurred from 2001 to 2008, the acting United States attorney, Michael K. Loucks, said at a news conference in Boston Wednesday.

But prosecutors said Mr. Mehanna, born and raised in Massachusetts, was unsuccessful in acquiring weapons to carry out the attack, and was also repeatedly rejected by terrorist groups in his efforts to join them.

Mr. Mehanna was ordered held without bail on Wednesday afternoon by Judge Leo T. Sorokin of the federal court here. At the hearing, Mr. Mehanna was defiant before Judge Sorokin, at first refusing to stand when called. “I’d prefer not to,” Mr. Mehanna said.

Mr. Mehanna’s father, sitting in the courtroom, apparently whispered to him that he should comply. Then, when Mr. Mehanna did stand, he kicked over his chair in anger. Wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, black track pants and black sneakers, Mr. Mehanna kept his hands in his pockets while answering the judge’s questions.

His next court appearance, a detention and probable cause hearing, is scheduled for Oct. 30.

Prosecutors said Mr. Mehanna had conspired with others — including Ahmad Abousamra, who authorities said had fled to Syria, and an unnamed informant helping investigators with the case. They had “multiple conversations” about carrying out attacks in and outside of the United States, prosecutors said.

“The conversations went so far as to discuss the logistics of a mall attack, including coordination, weapons needed and the possibility of attacking emergency responders,” Mr. Loucks said, adding that the three men made plans to “randomly shoot people” in a mall.

But Mr. Loucks said Mr. Mehanna could not obtain the automatic weapons he wanted to carry out the attack.

The authorities did not name the two members of the executive branch whom they said Mr. Mehanna and his associates had chosen as targets. Neither is now in office, Mr. Loucks said, and neither was ever in danger from the plot.

Mr. Mehanna’s lawyer, J. W. Carney Jr., spoke briefly after the hearing. “This is the type of case that challenges our commitment and faith in the United States Constitution,” Mr. Carney said. “Our country is respected around the world because we presume people are innocent, and we require the government to prove its allegations in open court at a trial.”

In May 2008, Mr. Mehanna graduated from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy, where his father is a professor of medicinal chemistry. Mr. Mehanna has been living with his parents in a large house on a cul-de-sac in Sudbury, Mass., an affluent Boston suburb.

Neighbors said they were shocked by his arrest. Chafic Maalouf, 47, who lives down the block from the Mehanna family, said he thought the younger Mr. Mehanna, whom he sometimes saw mowing the lawn, had worked as a pharmacy technician at a Walgreen drug store in Marlboro, Mass.

“He was very sweet, soft-spoken — he seemed so harmless,” Mr. Maalouf said. “He has a beard and a dark complexion, so to the average American he fits the terrorist profile,” he added. “But if you looked in his eyes, he seemed to be a very genuine, kind, loving person.”

Activity swirled in and out of the Mehanna house on Wednesday. Two women, including Mr. Mehanna’s mother, left in the afternoon in a silver four-door Mercedes. A car with New Hampshire license plates and a Massachusetts child care services placard in the front window was also parked in the driveway.

At the time of his arrest, Mr. Mehanna was free on bail from an earlier arrest, in November 2008 at Logan airport, when he was charged with lying to federal investigators in a 2006 interview. Prosecutors said Mr. Mehanna had lied about his contact with a friend. Daniel Maldonado, and about where Mr. Maldonado was living at the time.

Mr. Mehanna, prosecutors said, had sought to obtain automatic weapons from Mr. Maldonado, who at the time was a terrorism suspect. Mr. Maldonado, a native of Massachusetts, is now serving a 10-year prison sentence for training with Al Qaeda in Somalia.

The complaint filed on Wednesday also states that Mr. Mehanna and his associates traveled to Pakistan, Iraq, Syria and Yemen, seeking training from various terrorist groups to fight against American soldiers. But the groups rejected their efforts to join them.

To fuel their fervor for jihad activities, Mr. Mehanna and his associates obtained, watched and distributed videos of an attack in Iraq and of the mutilation of an American soldier, according to the complaint.

Mr. Mehanna is the fifth person living in the United States to be arrested on terrorism charges in the past five months. Investigators said that his failed conspiracy was not on the same scale as the two most recent previous cases.

Najibullah Zazi, a 24-year-old legal immigrant from Afghanistan who drove a shuttle bus in Denver, was arrested last month in Colorado on charges of terrorism conspiracy. He was accused of trying to carry out a plot in New York around the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

In July, Daniel P. Boyd, 39, and six other men, including his two sons, were charged in North Carolina with stockpiling automatic weapons and traveling abroad numerous times to participate in jihadist movements.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/us...ml?_r=1&ref=us

[Songline]

I only wonder why they have not cracked down on more in Mass. NJ. Wash DC. There are so many cells;
I am afraid we are asleep at the wheel.

About a year ago I had a conversation with a man in a restaurant in NYC. He was working in a middle eastern Restaurant and boasting about one of the weapons they have is to overpopulate and that in Mass the Arab/islamic population is huge and getting larger. He then added that New Jersey and Was. DC is saturated too. With a smirk he said we will outnumber by 2012 and win by 2024.
I never went back to that restaurant.

[Sandi48]

About a year ago I had a conversation with a man in a restaurant in NYC. He was working in a middle eastern Restaurant and boasting about one of the weapons they have is to overpopulate and that in Mass the Arab/islamic population is huge and getting larger. He then added that New Jersey and Was. DC is saturated too. With a smirk he said we will outnumber by 2012 and win by 2024.

OMG! How scary is that!

[Songline]

Originally Posted by Sandi48

OMG! How scary is that!

What is even more scary is that our government does know.