Ahmed Hassan Al-Uqaily says he was working a “reverse sting.” I guess that would be an attempt to snare police officers in unethical dealings. But if he said and did what he is reported to have said and done, they were just doing their duty to arrest him. From the Nashville City Paper:
A conflicting picture emerged Wednesday in the case of Ahmed Hassan Al-Uqaily, a 33-year-old Iraqi native living in Nashville who is said to be heavily involved with the peace movement but who willingly withdrew $1,000 last week to purchase weapons illegally.
Al-Uqaily allegedly spoke of “going jihad” to a friend Aug. 4 and that he was going to “blow something up.” On Oct. 7, at the conclusion of a two-month FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force sting operation, he purchased two disassembled M-16 machine guns, four disassembled hand grenades, and hundreds of rounds of ammunition from an undercover FBI agent.
He waived his Miranda rights immediately after being arrested and told agents he was working on a “reverse sting.”
In his wallet were business cards from law enforcement agents who had previously interviewed him following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, though FBI Special Agent Greg Franklin testified Wednesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge E. Clifton Knowles that Al-Uqaily had never contacted those agents about his “reverse sting.”
Well, of course not — if I understand a “reverse sting” correctly, they were his quarry, not his collaborators.