The new witch trials? Damned if you do, damned if you don't

http://privacysos.org/node/551

A young Muslim man told FBI provocateurs 'no way' when they tried to get him to buy a gun and travel to Pakistan for "jiahdi" training. And guess what happened next?

The FBI arrested him anyway.

The story of the FBI and Khalifah al-Akili is really something. As far as the Guardian tells it, it goes like this:

al-Akili gets approached by a couple of guys who ask him to buy a gun and say they can help him get to Pakistan to train for jihad. al-Akili says no thanks, but he gets one of the guys' phone numbers.

He goes home and searches Google for any reference to the phone number. Bam! He gets a hit -- a worrying hit.

The search returned a reference to the case of the Newburgh Four, where an FBI confidential informant called Shahed Hussain helped secure the convictions of four men for attempting to blow up Jewish targets in the Bronx.

------------------------
LINK TO GUARDIAN STORY
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/26/taliban-sympathiser-arrest-fbi-informant-tactics/print

'Taliban sympathiser' arrest prompts new questions about FBI tactics

The arrest of a Pittsburgh man described as a Taliban sympathiser has sparked allegations that the FBI deployed a notorious confidential informant used in previous controversial stings on suspected Muslim radicals.

Khalifah al-Akili, 34, was arrested in a police raid on his home on March 15. He was later charged with illegally possessing a gun after having previous felony convictions for drug dealing. However, at his court appearance an FBI agent testified that al-Akili had made radical Islamic statements and that police had uncovered unspecified jihadist literature at his home.

But, in a strange twist, al-Akili's arrest came just days after he had sent out an email to friends and local Muslim civil rights groups complaining that he believed he was the target of an FBI "entrapment" sting. That refers to a controversial FBI tactic of using confidential informants – who often have criminal records or are paid large sums of money – to facilitate "fake" terrorist plots for suspects to invent or carry out.

In the email – which was also sent to the Guardian before al-Akili was arrested – he detailed meeting two men he believed were FBI informants because of the way they talked about radical Islam and appeared to want to get him to make jihadist statements. According to his account, one of them, who called himself Saeed Torres, asked him to buy a gun. Al-Aikili said he refused. The other, who was called Mohammed, offered to help him go to Pakistan for possible Islamic radical training. Al-Akili also refused.