Homegrown extremism: Entrapment alleged in New York terror arrests

Scary man in handcuffs

Two Albany, NY muslim leaers pleaded not guilty this week to charges they took part in a plot to kill the Pakistani ambassador to the US. The plot itself didn’t exist – it was an FBI sting operation that allegedly had Imam Yassin Muhiddin Aref of Albany’s Masjid as-Salam and mosque co-founder Mohammed Mosharref Hossain agreeing to transfer funds to allow the informant to purchase a rocket launcher for use in the attack. Other evidence used in the arrest included money transfers to Iraqi relatives (“Mosque Man Wired Cash!” screams the New York Post) and that the Mosque Man’s name was found in an address book found in an Iraqi “terror camp” (as is George W. Bush’s, probably). Not surprisingly, their attorney, Terence L. Kindlon, considers it all to be entrapment (“It was clearly an attempt to entrap two individuals in criminal conduct.”). Even Pakistani officials expressed alarm that their US ambassador was a proposed target in the sting. “This has increased our ambassador’s and our mission’s vulnerability … and could have endangered the life of our ambassador,” said embassy spokesman Masood Khan. While five of the six degrees of separation from terror were simulated by the FBI, it wouldn’t be the first time that a Muslim leader has willingly filled in the blanks (although it also wouldn’t be the first time that charges were trumped up, either). Aref maintained that he thought any missile talk was “all a joke,” although evidence shown in court included the defendants looking at the informant posing with a real rocket launcher (er, you got a permit for that?). “Whether or not it was (entrapment) is up to a jury to decide,” said US District Court Judge David Homer, who denied bail to the two suspects. “But the object of conspiracy (the surface-to-air missile) was clearly known to both defendants.” Perhaps, but after Deputy Attorney General James Comey, when announcing the arrests, conceded that they did not amount to “the crime of the century” Kindlon added, “It is not even the crime of the week.”

Zahed Amanullah is associate editor of altmuslim.com.  He is based in London, England.