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Pakistani Muslim convicted of plot to blow up Manhattan subway

May 25, 2006 9:50 am By Robert Spencer

Same media obfuscation in the original headline that I noted here. He didn’t do all this because he is a Pakistani immigrant, or a high school dropout. He did all this because he believed that it was a proper response for him to make as a Muslim to the perceived injustice of Abu Ghraib. “Pakistani immigrant convicted in NYC plot,” from AP, with thanks to Looney Tunes:

NEW YORK – A high school dropout who drew the attention of undercover police with his anti-American rants after Sept. 11 was convicted Wednesday of plotting to blow up one of Manhattan’s busiest subway stations in retaliation for the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.

A federal jury in Brooklyn deliberated two days before convicting Shahawar Matin Siraj of conspiracy and other charges in a case that cast a spotlight on how authorities sought to monitor radical Muslims after the 2001 terrorist attacks. He faces up to life in prison.

Siraj, 23, listened to the verdict with downcast eyes. The defense had sought to portray him as an impressionable simpleton who was lured into a phony plot by a paid informant eager to earn his keep. Prosecutors disputed that claim, arguing that even if it was not the defendant’s idea to bomb a subway station, no law-abiding citizen would have gone along with it….

Siraj and another man suspected in the plot, James Elshafay, were arrested on the eve of the 2004 Republican National Convention carrying crude diagrams of their target “” the subway station in Herald Square, a dense shopping district that includes Macy’s flagship department store. Elshafay immediately agreed to cooperate with the government.

Authorities said Siraj had no affiliation with known terrorist organizations. Instead, he caught the attention of the informant, Osama Eldawoody, and an undercover police officer with his anti-American rants at an Islamic bookstore where he worked….

“He said he was a talented brother and a great planner and that he hoped bin Laden planned something big for America,” the officer said.

Inside the bookstore, Eldawoody wore a wire and chatted up Siraj. When the topic turned to the war in Iraq, the defendant recounted rumors among radicals that U.S. soldiers were sexually abusing Iraqi girls.

“That was enough for me,” he said in one of a series of secretly recorded conversations played for the jury. “I’m ready to do anything. I don’t care about my life.”…

Testifying in his own defense last week, Siraj said he never had a violent thought before he fell under the spell of the 50-year-old Eldawoody. He said the older man became a mentor and instructed him that there was a fatwa, or religious edict, permitting the killing of U.S. soldiers and law enforcement agents.

Eldawoody had himself talked about “blowing up the buildings and blowing up the Wall Street places,” the defendant said. He admitted taking steps to attack the subway station, but only after the informant inflamed him by showing him photos of prisoners being abused at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

“I used to just listen to him, but I never said ‘Yes, I was going to do it,’ or ‘no’ until the Abu Ghraib thing came up,” he said.

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