His attorneys are still pressing hard on the claim that he was "entrapped," although they never explain why it is that most people would never and could never be "entrapped" into attempting to commit mass murder. Anyway, watch in the coming days for numerous weepy stories about how the Muslim community in Portland is bracing for a backlash (that never appears) -- ever the victim, never ever held accountable to do something to teach against the beliefs that led Mohamed Mohamud to try to become a killer.
"Mohamed Mohamud guilty verdict: No reaction from defendant, lawyers plan to appeal," by Bryan Denson for The Oregonian, January 31:
Silence fell across a Portland courtroom Thursday as U.S. District Judge Garr M. King read the verdict in the terrorism case of Mohamed Osman Mohamud, whose attempt to bomb the city's town square two years ago stunned the nation.Jurors found the 21-year-old Somali American guilty of trying to detonate a weapon of mass destruction in Pioneer Courthouse Square -- a four-block walk from where they sat in the downtown courthouse.
Mohamud, whose lawyers argued that the FBI entrapped their client in a sophisticated sting that went too far, showed no reaction.
Wearing a sweater and slacks, he rose from his seat, looked back at his lawyers and waved as deputy U.S. marshals ushered him out of the courtroom. The proceeding took seven minutes.
"It's good to have closure on the case," Ethan D. Knight, the government's chief prosecutor, told a crush of reporters atop the steps of the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse.
"But an instance such as this is also sad in the sense that this defendant's conduct impacted a number of people, including his family," Knight said. "We believe that the evidence showed in court makes clear that this investigation and this prosecution rightfully addressed a significant threat and dangerous situation."
Mohamud's legal team said it will appeal the decision, returned after less than seven hours of deliberation. Chief defense lawyer Stephen R. Sady said the team will work until Mohamud's May 14 sentencing to show reasons he should receive a much-reduced punishment from the potential life prison term he faces."We're disappointed with the verdict," said Sady, who spoke briefly with his client after court. "We obviously thought he was entrapped."
Mohamud's conviction made him the ninth person to raise an entrapment defense after being snared in a post-9/11 FBI terrorism sting, said Karen J. Greenberg, director of the Center on National Security at Fordham Law School in New York.
All have been convicted, she said.
"This was a case in which the defendant had more of a chance than these others," Greenberg said. Mohamud's age -- he was 18 when he fell under FBI surveillance -- and Portland's well-known penchant for questioning authority -- as evidenced by the city's decision to pull out of the FBI's joint terrorism task force -- gave him a leg up on previous defendants, she said.
"I think there's a chance that one of these cases may end in an acquittal ... down the road," Greenberg said.
Trial testimony showed that Mohamud had written for an online jihadi magazine, traded emails with two accused terrorists and was in contact with another man who left the Northwest to fight against coalition troops in Afghanistan.
He was under watch by the FBI for nearly a year when agents got the "green light" to target him for investigation. The bureau sent in two undercover agents, posing as al-Qaida operatives "Youssef" and "Hussein," to befriend Mohamud and learn his intentions.
Most such "assessments," as the FBI calls them, end with no criminal charges.
But in his first face-to-face meeting with agents, on July 30, 2010, Mohamud expressed interest in taking part in a car bombing. Thus began an investigative courtship and sting that would end on the evening of Nov. 26, 2010.
On that afternoon, agents presented Mohamud with a fake but realistic looking fertilizer bomb secretly built by an FBI explosive technician. The massive device -- six 55-gallon drums connected to a cell-phone ignition system -- choked the cargo area of a van. A hidden camera captured Mohamud grinning at the device and declaring it "beautiful."
Later that night, from the passenger seat of an SUV parked about 1,000 yards from Pioneer Courthouse Square, Mohamud pressed the keypad of a cell phone to detonate the bomb. When nothing happened, one of the undercover FBI agents told him to get out and try it again.
When he did, a team of FBI agents rushed the van and arrested him.
During pre-trial hearings and the trial, which stretched from Jan. 10 until Thursday, Mohamud's lawyers appeared to be laying the grounds for a possible appeal.
One of the key points they are expected to raise is a ruling by the judge that prevented them from learning the true identities of "Youssef" and "Hussein," the star witnesses in the government's case. The judge said giving up their names and other identifying information could put the agents' lives at risk and potentially damage ongoing national security cases.
Deep cross-examination of witnesses in any criminal case is a right guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment. But King's ruling prevented the defense from learning basic information about the agents' veracity or whether they had ever been disciplined.
The sentencing and appeal of the Mohamud case are likely to drag on for many months....
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Of course the Muslim community in Portland will be crying/singing the islamophobia victimology blues. And many a unwitting non-Muslim will be seduced by that tired old siren song.
Speaking an ex-Muslim, what I find most odd about Islam's non-Muslim supporters is that they seem incapable of making the leap of logic to grasp the fact that when non-Muslims support and/or defend Islam, they are supporting and/or defending the following:
* Slavery:
Qur'an 16:71
And Allah hath favored some of you above others in provision. Now those who are more favored will by no means hand over their provision to those (slaves) whom their right hands possess, so that they may be equal with them in respect thereof. Is it then the grace of Allah that they deny?
http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Qur'an,_Hadith_and_Scholars:Slavery#Islam_Permits_Slavery
* Sex Slavery:
Hadith, Sahih Bukhari Vol.7, Bk.62, No.137:
Narrated Abu Said Al-Khudri: We got female captives in the war booty and we used to do coitus interruptus with them. So we asked Allah's Apostle about it and he said, "Do you really do that?" repeating the question thrice, "There is no soul that is destined to exist but will come into existence, till the Day of Resurrection."
http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Concerns_with_Islam:_Sexual_Slavery_in_Islam
* The death for penalty for the apostates of Islam:
In Islam, the rejection in part (of any of the pillars, or individual principles of Islam), or discarding the faith as a whole, amounts to apostasy. It is not a quick or easy affair for an apostate or heterodox believer of Islam, as the punishment for apostasy in the Islamic faith is death. Though it may be argued that this is not clear through the Qur'an alone, scholars have found justification for the penalty from within its pages, and there are also numerous Sahih (authentic) hadiths confirming this punishment as attested by Prophet Muhammad. In Sahih Bukhari, Vol. 9, Book 84, No. 57 we see it as “Allah's Apostle said, 'Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him'”, and it was also one of only three reasons given by him where killing a Muslim is permitted.
http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Islam_and_Apostasy
* Child molestation:
Qur'an, 065.004
And (as for) those of your women who have despaired of menstruation, if you have a doubt, their prescribed time shall be three months, and of those too who have not had their courses; and (as for) the pregnant women, their prescribed time is that they lay down their burden; and whoever is careful of (his duty to) Allah He will make easy for him his affair.
http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Islam_and_Pedophilia
* 100 Lashes for unmarried adulterers: Qur'an 24:2
* Stoning for married adulterers:
Sahih Bukhari, Vol.8, Bk.82, Number 826:
Narrated Abu Huraira and Zaid bin Khalid:
Two men had a dispute in the presence of Allah's Apostle. One of them said, "Judge us according to Allah's Laws." The other who was more wise said, "Yes, Allah's Apostle, judge us according to Allah's Laws and allow me to speak (first)" The Prophet said to him, 'Speak " He said, "My son was a laborer for this man, and he committed illegal sexual intercourse with his wife, and the people told me that my son should be stoned to death, but I have given one-hundred sheep and a slave girl as a ransom (expiation) for my son's sin. Then I asked the religious learned people (about It), and they told me that my son should he flogged one-hundred stripes and should be exiled for one year, and only the wife of this man should be stoned to death " Allah's Apostle said, "By Him in Whose Hand my soul is, I will judge you according to Allah's Laws: O man, as for your sheep and slave girl, they are to be returned to you." Then the Prophet had the man's son flogged one hundred stripes and exiled for one year, and ordered Unais Al-Aslami to go to the wife of the other man, and if she confessed, stone her to death. She confessed and was stoned to death.
We ex-Muslims living with Islam's formal and informal death penalty for apostasy know that the cruel, über violent cult of Mohammedanism is a despicable fraud.
Islam is no “religion of peace.” Islam is primarily a religion of “injustice, intolerance, hatred, and violence.” The fact is, if we non-Muslims were to say about Muslims what the Qur'an says about us, we would be arrested for hate speech. The Qur'an largely preaches discrimination, death, and imposition of its dogma on everyone. Certainly some Muslims will be offended by such statements, but frankly, so what? Judaism and Christianity, the world’s two other major monotheistic religions, have had to face the harshest of scrutiny and criticism for several hundred years which continues to this day. Islam must not be granted any special privileges or be exempt from such treatment – the implications are of tremendous importance.
Here is a recent statement from a group of Bangladeshi apostates living in the UK explaining the reasons why they have abandoned Islam:
"One who claims to be a messenger of God is expected to live a saintly life. He must not be given to lust, he must not be a sexual pervert, and he must not be a rapist, a highway robber, a war criminal, a mass murderer or an assassin. One who claims to be a messenger of God must have a superior character. He must stand above the vices of the people of his time. Yet Muhammad’s life is that of a gangster godfather. He raided merchant caravans, looted innocent people, massacred entire male populations and enslaved the women and children. He raped the women captured in war after killing their husbands and told his followers that it is okay to have sex with their captives (Qur'an 33:50). He assassinated those who criticized him and executed them when he came to power and became de facto despot of Arabia. Muhammad was bereft of human compassion. He was an obsessed man with his dreams of grandiosity and could not forgive those who stood in his way...
The statement continues,
Muhammad was a narcissist, like Hitler, Saddam or Stalin. He was astute and knew how to manipulate people, but his emotional intelligence was less evolved than that of a 6-year-old child. He simply could not feel the pain of others. He brutally massacred thousands of innocent people and pillaged their wealth. His ambitions were big and as a narcissist he honestly believed he is entitled to do as he pleased and commit all sorts of crimes and his evil deeds are justified."