“A lawyer for Shaker Masri…told reporters that the agreement hammered out with his counterparts at the U.S. Attorney’s Office was favorable to his client…”
“Chicago terror suspect agrees to plead guilty,” by Michael Tarm for the Associated Press, July 12 (thanks to Block Ness):
CHICAGO (AP) — A 29-year-old Chicago man accused of plotting a suicide bombing overseas has agreed to change his plea to guilty, bringing to an end one of the last terrorism trials pending in the city’s federal court.
A lawyer for Shaker Masri – whose plea deal was announced at a Thursday status hearing – told reporters that the agreement hammered out with his counterparts at the U.S. Attorney’s Office was favorable to his client, though he declined to elaborate….
Masri, who was born in Alabama and lived abroad before returning to the U.S. at age 18, was arrested in 2010 before boarding a scheduled flight from Chicago to Los Angeles – allegedly the first leg of a trip to a training camp for jihadists in Somalia….
Masri was charged with attempting to provide material support to a violent extremist and trying to offer material support by use of a weapon of mass destruction outside the U.S. Those charges could carry a sentence of several decades in prison….
Among those who changed their pleas to guilty before going to trial in Chicago was Sami Samir Hassoun, the Lebanese immigrant accused of placing a backpack he thought held a bomb on a crowded street near Wrigley Field, the Chicago Cubs’ stadium.