In a test of the U.S. government's domestic war on terrorism, a jury on Tuesday found two Arab immigrants guilty of conspiring to support Islamic extremists plotting attacks in the United States and the Middle East. One co-defendant was acquitted of all charges, and the jury returned mixed verdicts on a fourth. Abdel-Ilah Elmardoudi, 37, and Karim Koubriti, 24, were found guilty of two counts — conspiracy to provide material support or resources to terrorists and conspiracy to engage in fraud and misuse of visas, permits and other documents. Koubriti was acquitted of two other fraud counts. Ahmed Hannan, 34, was acquitted of conspiracy to support terrorism, but was found guilty of conspiracy to engage in fraud and misuse of visas, permits and other documents. He was acquitted of two other fraud counts. Farouk Ali-Haimoud, 22, was acquitted of all charges.
Elmardoudi and Koubriti face up to 15 years in prison when they are sentenced. The jury reached its verdict on its seventh day of deliberations. The case, which began with a raid on a Detroit apartment just six days after the Sept. 11 attacks, was seen as a test of the government's ability to prosecute alleged terrorist "sleeper" cells. Prosecutors said the four men — Elmardoudi, Hannan, Ali-Haimoud and Koubriti — were working as part of a shadowy unidentified terrorist group. They said a videotape and sketches found in the raid showed potential targets were cased including Las Vegas and Disneyland, and military installations in Turkey and Jordan. Defense attorneys said their clients were victims of overzealous federal agents who relied on the lies of an admitted con man to build a flimsy case that didn't add up to terrorism. The men were all legal immigrants. Ali-Haimoud is Algerian and the others are from Morocco. Prosecutors alleged their plot was hatched before they arrived in the United States in the late 1990s and 2000.
| It's amazing, how many of these cases are brought by overzealous federal agents relying on the lies of con men and carnie touts and hookers to build flimsy cases against innocent Arabs... |
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