A U.S. citizen once acquitted of giving aid to the Taliban was convicted Monday of lying to a U.S. grand jury about his training as a jihadist. Sabri Benkahla, 31, was convicted of four felony counts, including making false declarations to a grand jury and obstruction of justice. He faces a maximum of 25 years in prison when he is sentenced April 27.Prosecutors said Benkahla lied about his training with a militant group in Pakistan called Lashkar-e-Taiba. Benkahla told a grand jury in 2004 he never engaged in any combat training during a 1999 trip to Pakistan, while the government said he trained with Lashkar on the use of rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons. The defense argued that prosecutors, stung by Benkahla's acquittal in 2004 on charges of providing support to the Taliban, laid a perjury trap by summoning him before the grand jury and asking a variety of questions that had no bearing on the grand jury's terrorism investigation.
Benkahla was one of only two defendants who obtained acquittals in the government's prosecution of a dozen Muslim men who participated in what the government called a "Virginia jihad network" that used paintball games in the woods in 2000 and 2001 as a means to train for holy war around the globe. During the more recent trial, an FBI agent testified that Benkahla's testimony was important because they were investigating his links to a variety of suspected terrorists, including Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, also a U.S. citizen, who was convicted of joining al-Qaida and plotting to assassinate U.S. President George W. Bush.