It reads like a child's story, too.
Related: The Trial of Captain Hook
"Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, 56, countered three weeks of government evidence with answers to rapid-fire questions posed by defense lawyer Joshua Dratel."
Mustafa made out of clay?
"Islamic cleric testifies he wanted to aid hostages" Associated Press May 13, 2014
NEW YORK — A former London imam told a jury Monday he tried to help hostages in Yemen in 1998 by urging their captors to let them telephone embassies and their families.
Mustafa Kamel Mustafa testified for a third day in Manhattan federal court. He has pleaded not guilty to charges that he conspired to support terrorism by helping the hostage takers, by later trying to create a training camp in Oregon, and by arranging for men to attend Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan.
If convicted, the 55-year-old Mustafa could face life in prison.
Prosecutors are set to begin cross examination on Tuesday, with closings expected to follow Wednesday.
Mustafa has said he supplied a satellite phone to the men but was angry when he learned they had taken 16 people hostage. ‘‘I felt betrayed,’’ he said, recalling a conversation he had while he was in London. ‘‘I was a bit angry.’’
He said one of the hostage takers tried to calm him.
‘‘He said, ‘Don’t panic. These things happen every day in Yemen,’ ’’ he recalled of one of his conversations with the kidnappers. He said his offer to go to Yemen and negotiate was refused.
Mustafa said he had urged the captors to let the hostages call their embassies and families and tell them ‘‘We are good. We are looked after.’’
He added, ‘‘I tried to explain to him these people can be your mouthpiece.’’
He said he worried that the Yemen government would ‘‘act stupidly’’ and cause deaths. Four hostages died.
Yemen military troops rescued the European tourists about 24 hours after they were first overrun as their vehicles traveled between cities in late December 1998.
In his conversations with hostage takers, Mustafa said, he promised to pay for extra minutes on the satellite phone and charged $500 on a credit card to do so.
After the hostage-taking ended, he reported that the satellite phone had been stolen and tried unsuccessfully to get the money back.
Two of the former hostages testified last week, including a woman who recorded an interview with Mustafa at his mosque as she worked on a book about her ordeal.
Mustafa was extradited in 2012 from England, where he turned London’s Finsbury Park Mosque in the 1990s into a training ground for Islamic extremists, attracting men including Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui and shoe bomber Richard Reid.
Before defense lawyer Joshua Dratel completed his questioning of his client Monday, he asked Mustafa again if he had conspired to do any of the things that prosecutors have said he did. As he had at the outset of his testimony last Wednesday, he denied doing so.
Washington considers Yemen’s branch of Al Qaeda, also known as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, to be the most dangerous in the world. Three years ago, the group made significant military advances in southern Yemen. Since then, government forces have mounted offensives aimed at routing militants from their strongholds.
Related: August Terror Scare
That was less than three years ago.
The United States, which trains Yemen’s counterterrorism forces, has conducted a campaign of drone strikes against suspected Al Qaeda targets in the country.
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"British cleric convicted in US terrorism trial" by Benjamin Weiser | New York Times May 20, 2014
NEW YORK — The fiery British cleric who prosecutors said had “devoted his life to violent jihad” and sent young men around the world to train and fight was convicted Monday of all 11 terrorism-related charges against him.
At this point I noted the article is a rewrite. Why?
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Print version that was scrubbed from the web:
For much of the past month, jurors watched videotapes and heard audio clips in which Mustafa shouted to his followers, telling them non-Muslims could be treated like animals and women and children who were not Muslim could be taken captive.
But they saw a gentler version of Mustafa on the witness stand, one who spoke confidently in the tone of a college professor as he insisted he never engaged in acts of terrorism or aided al-Qaida.
His testimony over four days was derided by Assistant U.S. Attorney Ian McGinley, who told jurors to ignore his lies and concentrate on the evidence.
In his closing argument, a prosecutor, Ian McGinley, read aloud the names of four European tourists who died in 1998.
It was hiding in plain sight, huh?
Another insulting, in-your-face laugher from the propagandists who write this stuff. They know it's all bullshit, and they are rubbing your face in it.
Time for me to read a bedtime story and turn in for the night.
