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Bin Laden’s son-in-law convicted of conspiring to murder Americans in jihad terror attacks

Mar 26, 2014 11:33 am By Robert Spencer

Abu GhaithLooks as if the old man chose well for his daughter: a man who reflected his values and priorities. “The storm of airplanes will not stop,” said Abu Ghaith — and while that seemed like an empty boast then, as a threat it seems to have more currency now. Whatever may have happened to the missing Malaysian plane, certainly Islamic jihadists have not stopped targeting airliners, while airport security services keep us safe from…Woody.

“Bin Laden son-in-law convicted at NYC terror trial,” from the Associated Press, March 26 (thanks to Steve):

NEW YORK (AP) — Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law, the voice of fiery al-Qaida propaganda videotapes after the Sept. 11 attacks, was convicted Wednesday of conspiring to kill Americans for his role as the terror group’s spokesman.

The verdict came after about five hours of deliberation in the case against Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, the highest-ranking al-Qaida figure to face trial on U.S. soil since the attacks. The Kuwaiti imam had testified during a three-week New York trial that he answered bin Laden’s request in the hours after the attacks to speak on the widely circulated videos used to recruit new followers willing to go on suicide missions like the 19 who hijacked four planes on Sept. 11, 2001.

“The storm of airplanes will not stop,” Abu Ghaith was heard warning in an October 2001 video that was played for the jury.

Also shown repeatedly to the jury during the trial were frames of a video made Sept. 12, 2001, that showed Abu Ghaith seated next to bin Laden and two other top al-Qaida leaders as they tried to justify the attacks.

On Monday, during closing arguments, Assistant U.S. Attorney John Cronan underscored the importance of Abu Ghaith’s post 9/11 status.

“Going to that man was the very first thing Osama bin Laden did on Sept. 11 after the terror attacks,” he said. “The defendant committed himself to al-Qaida’s conspiracy to kill Americans, and he worked to drive other people to that conspiracy.”

He added: “During the most important period of time in al-Qaida’s savage history, Sulaiman Abu Ghaith was Osama bin Laden’s principal messenger. … He used his fiery oratory to incite al-Qaida’s growing army of terror in this war with America.”

The jury returned a verdict on three charges: conspiracy to kill Americans, conspiring to provide support to al-Qaida and providing support to al-Qaida. The charges carry a potential penalty of life in prison.

Captured in Jordan last year and brought to New York, Abu Ghaith has actively participated in his trial. He listened to testimony and arguments through headphones linked to an Arabic translator.

Taking the witness stand in his own defense, Abu Ghaith in a calm voice denied he was an al-Qaida recruiter and claimed his role was a religious one aimed at encouraging all Muslims to rise up against their oppressors. He insisted he agreed to meet with bin Laden in a cave on the night of Sept. 11 out of respect for bin Laden’s standing as a sheik.

“Despite knowing that he was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Americans, you met with him to be polite, correct?” prosecutor Michael Ferrara asked on cross-examination.

“I didn’t go to meet with him to bless if he had killed hundreds of Americans or not. I went to meet with him to know what he wanted,” Abu Ghaith said.

Government witnesses included an FBI agent who interviewed him on a 10-hour flight to the United States and a Buffalo, New York-area man who testified that he heard him speak in Afghanistan several months before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Another witness was a British man who was supposed to join Richard Reid in a shoe-bomb attack in December 2001 but who quit the conspiracy during a trip home after his parents warned him that he better not be a terrorist. He did not know Abu Ghaith, but prosecutors introduced the evidence to show Abu Ghaith knew what he was talking about when he warned that air attacks against the United States would continue.

Abu Ghaith’s defense lawyer, Stanley Cohen, argued there was “zero evidence” that the 48-year-old former teacher knew of the conspiracies the government claimed he knew about. Citing the videos of his client, Cohen warned jurors not to let prosecutors “intimidate you and to frighten you into returning verdicts not based upon evidence, but fear.”

Those videos, though, emerged as the centerpiece of the government’s case. One — titled “Convoy of Martyrs” — features Abu Ghaith preaching over horrific footage of a plane flying into one of the World Trade Center towers. Another showed the defendant looking at bin Laden admiringly as the al-Qaida leader boasted that he knew the attack would make both towers fall.

Prosecutors used Abu Ghaith’s testimony and closing arguments as an opportunity to reshow the image of the burning towers to jurors.

In his closing, Cronan used the defendant’s testimony against him.

“Accept it as totally true. If you do that, he’s guilty,” Cronan said.

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Filed Under: Jihad in the U.S. Tagged With: featured


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Comments

  1. mariam rove says

    Mar 26, 2014 at 11:41 am

    Bin Laden’s son-in-law convicted of conspiring to murder ….
    No kidding. M

  2. mortimer says

    Mar 26, 2014 at 12:22 pm

    A conspirator denying his involvement, he realizes the evil fate that awaits him in an American jail where the inmates will consider him unworthy of living.

    • RG says

      Mar 26, 2014 at 12:49 pm

      To ‘mortimer’ – If only what you say were truly the case. I say, yeah, let the inmates handle him. Unfortunately, these disgusting parasites are known to actually gain a following of equally demented muzz-turds when they’re incarcerated!

      I say let’s reinstate the death penalty for every conspirator, co-conspirator and perpetrator of islamic jihad! Let’s send them to their 72 prize bag ladies!!!

      • Salah says

        Mar 26, 2014 at 3:04 pm

        “I say let’s reinstate the death penalty for every conspirator, co-conspirator and perpetrator of islamic jihad! Let’s send them to their 72 prize bag ladies!!!”

        Agree 100%

        Egypt court sentences 528 Morsi supporters to death
        http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-26712124

  3. Walter Sieruk says

    Mar 26, 2014 at 1:20 pm

    As the reader may see in the above article, the son in law of that murderous fiend Osama bin Laden had no remorse of sorrow at all for the murders that he had a hand in. The Bible does explain about such evil men in First Timothy 4:2. Which describes some characters as being so wicked that they have “their conscience seared with a hot iron.”[K.J.V.] This “hot iron” in this case is Islam, Sura 9:111,112. 47:4.

  4. ralph3796 says

    Mar 26, 2014 at 2:45 pm

    Just send him on to his “72 virgins and that way the tax payers’ will be GLAD.

  5. Ayatrollah says

    Mar 26, 2014 at 10:02 pm

    Notice this guy is an imam, or a religious leader in Islam. It is hateful and oppressive not to let him practice Islam like pbuh and Allah want.

  6. Huck Folder says

    Mar 27, 2014 at 1:39 am

    Defence lawyer Stanley Lewis Cohen is, so far, the most disgusting, loathsome, evil, slimy individual I have read about. That he is a ‘jew’ is revolting, maybe worse than Chomsky, Finkelstein, Pappe, Atzmon… Here he is in kefiyya:

    http://static01.nyt.com/images/2014/03/27/nyregion/27ABUGHAITH2/27ABUGHAITH2-articleLarge.jpg

    About the Dipshit:

    http://www.israelbehindthenews.com/bin/content.cgi?ID=1522&q=1

    “Israel is a “terrorist state,” he says. Palestinians have no choice but to attack Israelis “by any means necessary,” he says. Yes, that includes suicide bombings.

    Who is this bearded supporter of jihad and what’s he doing in a Lower East Side loft decorated with Syrian banknotes, a close-up photo of an AK-47 and his own mug shots? He is Stanley L. Cohen, Esq., defender of accused terrorists and possibly one of the most hated lawyers in this city.

    He points proudly to a recent picture of him sitting side by side with Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the Hamas spiritual leader who cheers on the shrapnel-laden Palestinian bombers from his wheelchair in Gaza.

    “I’ve been arrested on a good number of occasions – it comes with the turf – both before being a lawyer and since being a lawyer. But, as we say, inshallah” – Allah willing – “my record is perfect.””

    “In the early 1980s, when he was still a law student, Cohen teamed up with attorney Lynne Stewart to defend a number of far-left radicals against state prosecution in New York. In one of their more high-profile cases, the pair together represented Kathy Boudin—a Weather Underground and May 19 Communist Organization member who had participated in the deadly 1981 Brinks robbery, a heist whose purpose was to acquire the funds needed to finance a war against “Amerikka” and establish a “Republic of Black Afrika” in the United States.”

    “Notably, Cohen has explained the rationale underlying his choice of clients. “If I don’t support the politics of political clients, I don’t take the case.” “Most of my clients [are] involved with struggle, many of them armed struggle,” he notes, proudly.”

    “For the sake of argument – and Cohen’s life is all about argument – he will concede certain points. “I’m a pig. I’m a self-hating Jew. I’m a communist.””

    Is he not worse than the perp? If he wins on appeal, isn’t he an enabler?

    • gravenimage says

      Mar 28, 2014 at 4:19 pm

      Thanks for the information, Huck—and yes, some of these disgusting defense lawyers are almost as repulsive as their Jihadist clients.

  7. gravenimage says

    Mar 28, 2014 at 4:17 pm

    Bin Laden’s son-in-law convicted of conspiring to murder Americans in jihad terror attacks
    ……………………………………..

    I’m shocked, shocked that someone bin Laden would marry off one of his possessions to is conspiring to wage violent Jihad! Oh, wait…no, I’m not…

    More:

    Taking the witness stand in his own defense, Abu Ghaith in a calm voice denied he was an al-Qaida recruiter and claimed his role was a religious one aimed at encouraging all Muslims to rise up against their oppressors.
    ……………………………………..

    Talk about a distinction without a difference! Pious Muslims consider themselves “oppressed” wherever Infidels live freely, rather than as dhimmis under the heel of brutal Islamic Shari’ah law.

  8. PRCS says

    Mar 29, 2014 at 1:33 pm

    test

  9. Clare says

    Mar 29, 2014 at 8:26 pm

    When he was hinging out with those guys, he didn’t know a thing about what they were doing. He was just their Press Secretary, like Jay Carney.

  10. Clare says

    Mar 29, 2014 at 8:27 pm

    Correction: hanging out

  11. Clare says

    Mar 29, 2014 at 8:28 pm

    I am correcting a spelling mistake: hanging out

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