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Second defendant in alleged terror sleeper cell pleads guilty
From Phil Hirschkorn
BUFFALO, New York (CNN) -- Another one of the six upstate New York men accused of attending an al Qaeda camp has changed his plea to guilty and admitted being trained to use firearms and explosives. Shafel Mosed, 24, entered the plea at a federal court hearing Monday morning. Sources told CNN that a third defendant, Yahya Goba, 26, is also expected to enter a guilty plea during a court appearance scheduled Tuesday. Mosed was the second defendant to admit he attended the defunct al Farooq camp near Kandahar, Afghanistan, in 2001 just a few months before the September 11 terrorist attacks. In court, he said the recruits heard al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden say in a May 2001 lecture that 50 men were on a suicide mission. Mosed admitted that he knew prior to departing the United States that the trip was illegal and that al Qaeda and bin Laden were associated with the camp. Mosed said he was taught to use a Kalashnikov, a nine-millimeter handgun, an M16 automatic rifle, and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and that he received instruction in military tactics. At an al Qaeda guest house before his arrival at the camp, Mosed said he watched videos of Muslim rebels fighting in Bosnia and Chechnya and purchased his own military uniform. Mosed said he performed guard duty at the camp, but left before his training was complete. "He had never fired a gun before," defense attorney Patrick Brown said in a telephone interview. "It was a scary situation for him. When he got out, he knew he shouldn't have been there," Brown said. Mosed and the other defendants are U.S. citizens of Yemeni descent who lived in Lackawanna, New York, five miles outside Buffalo. They were indicted last October on two-counts of providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, charges that carry a 15-year prison sentence. Mosed pleaded guilty to the less punitive second count and is expected to receive an eight-year sentence. He is the first person to be convicted of providing material support -- consisting of himself -- to al Qaeda and is the first American-born citizen to be convicted under this law, passed by Congress in 1996, according to the Justice Department. In the only other convictions under the material support law to date, two men were convicted last year in North Carolina of sending money from a cigarette-smuggling ring to Lebanon-based terrorist group Hezbollah. "Today's conviction sends an unmistakable message that providing or attempting to provide material support to terrorists in any way, such as training with them, is a serious federal crime and will be vigorously prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law," said prosecutor William Hochul. In January, Faysal Galab, 25, was the first alleged cell member to plead guilty to a lesser charge of contributing "funds, goods and services to and for the benefit" of al Qaeda and bin Laden. Galab faces a seven-year term. Mosed and Galab are now cooperating with prosecutors. Plea negotiations are under way for the remaining defendants, sources familiar with the case have told CNN. The other alleged cell members are Sahim Alwan, 30; Mukthtar al-Bakri, 22; Yahya Goba, 26; and Yasein Taher, 25. Alwan and al-Bakri have admitted to interrogators that they attended the camps, according to the government's charges. Brown said that Galab's earlier plea incriminating Mosed all but forced his client to acknowledge he did go the camp. Though defense attorneys have considered fighting the government's contention that merely attending a camp constitutes material support, Brown said winning that legal point could have been a hollow victory. The attorney said the government threatened even tougher charges ranging from weapons violations to treason and declaring Mosed an enemy combatant and shifting his case to a military tribunal, which the plea deal precludes. All six defendants have been in custody since their arrests in mid-September. The government has suggested the defendants constituted a so-called "sleeper cell" waiting for orders to carry out some future attack in the United States. -- CNN Correspondent Susan Candiotti contributed to this report.
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