Lawyer: Macy's Terror Suspect Was Entrapped
New York, NY —
The lawyer of an accused terrorist says his client did conspire to bomb the Herald Square subway station. But he says the Pakistani immigrant was entrapped by a paid informant of the NYPD. WNYC's Fred Mogul has more.
At the very beginning of his opening argument, the defense attorney of Shahawar Matin Siraj said the prosecution will prove its case. But Siraj's lawyer said the Pakistani immigrant was adrift, under-employed and just beginning to get religious, when he met a man named Osama El-Dawoody.
El-Dawoody came to the United States from Egypt in 1986, and had a number of failed business ventures. El-Dawoody testified that he met Siraj at a Muslim bookstore in Bay Ridge late in 2003 and was shocked six months later when the young man handed him a CD with instructions for making bombs.
El-Dawoody had volunteered to help NYPD detectives infiltrate Islamic communities in 2002. He said he felt bad for what Muslims had done on September 11th and wanted to prove that his people were dedicated citizens and residents of the U.S. Prosecutors today will play excerpts from hours of secret recordings El-Dawoody made of Siraj.
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