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demoleft Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Nov-21-09 04:53 AM
Original message
Sears Tower bomb plot leader Narseal Batiste jailed
Source: bbc

The leader of a group which plotted to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago has been sentenced to 13-and-a-half years in prison.

Narseal Batiste, 35, also planned to bomb FBI offices, along with four other men who have already been jailed.

Prosecutors said the men conspired to provide material support to al-Qaeda but defence lawyers said the plot was never serious.

Prosecutors in Miami had sought the maximum 70-year sentence for Batiste.


Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8371671.stm
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ck4829 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Nov-21-09 05:03 AM
Response to Original message
1. Finally convicted after the what? Third, fourth trial on the same exact charges?
Edited on Sat Nov-21-09 05:03 AM by ck4829
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struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Nov-21-09 08:05 AM
Response to Reply #1
5. ... three trials, three juries and nearly three years ...
Sears Tower Bombing Plot: 5 Of 6 Convicted Of Planning To Blow Up Sears Tower, FBI Offices
CURT ANDERSON | May 12, 2009 08:15 PM EST |
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/12/sears-tower-bombing-plot_n_202371.html
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Name removed Donating Member (0 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Nov-21-09 05:50 AM
Response to Original message
2. Deleted message
Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.
 
struggle4progress Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Nov-21-09 08:34 AM
Response to Reply #2
6. "Seas of David" was a group of marginal homeless men, living in a warehouse in Miami's
Liberty City neighborhood, about 1300 miles away from Chicago Sears Tower. They were known for strutting around the area, bizarrely dressed. There seems to be no evidence that they ever planned anything coherently or took any actual steps towards blowing up the Towr. An FBI informant promised them boots and cellphones if they would make tapes promising to blow up the Sears Tower: that was the basis of the convictions in the third trial, after two mistrials. They later said they didn't mean what they said on the tapes and made the tapes just to get the boots and cellphones. It's obviously not the brightest group ever assembled -- and the story strongly suggests they're semi-psychotic. The bust was accompanied by a standard Bushista strategy for consolidating political power, namely, hysterical screaming about homegrown Muslim al-Qaeda groups -- but in fact the guys weren't Muslim. This was an entrapment of some rather dysfunctional folk for the purposes of political theatre

If you want to set semi-psychotic homeless guys on fire, then maybe you're really the one who's a flaming a-hole
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Warren Stupidity Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Nov-21-09 10:57 AM
Response to Reply #2
7. The 'sob' was lead to slaughter by an fbi informant.
13 years seems a bit harsh for a plot that it seems involved walking to chicago from miami and blowing up a huge building with, well, nothing.

Apropos of nothing, what is your favorite type of pizza?
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CrunchMaster Donating Member (308 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Nov-21-09 09:58 PM
Response to Reply #7
10. Pretty much all of America's Terror Cases Since 1992 have Been FBI Created, Tested and Approved
Edited on Sat Nov-21-09 10:02 PM by CrunchMaster
I find it interesting that the government is in this mad rush now to lock up or execute all of its phoney terror patsies that have been used over the years to push us to war or to weaken the constitution and wreck the federal government. I suspect the rush is so that these guys can be permanently silenced so the wider foreign and domestic networks they were a part of and controlled by never come to light.

John Allen Muhammad : Just recently(and conveniently) executed right after the Ft. Hood Shooting
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed : Finally being brought to New York where they can seek a death sentence for him(and shut him up)
Tim McVeigh : Executed right before 9/11 on June 11th 2001, also convenient since the OKC bombing was directly tied to 9/11

As others have mentioned and I posted at the thread below, all of these "terror" operations in the U.S. and Canada, usually involving Muslims and minorities being manipulated by FBI, RCMP, Muslim Brotherhood and white supremacists informants, has been going on since about 1992 under the same Modus Operandi of using minorities and arabs as scapegoats to clamp down on domestic dissent, give government more power and to keep the USA on a war footing. (As a side note, you may remember, it was also Canada and U.S. Norad that were running joint training operations that rendered the U.S. air defenses inoperable on 9/11)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=274634&mesg_id=274634

The FBI started way back in 1992 the game of using informants and agent provocateurs to create terrorist plots where in essence there were no terrorist plots. And they used white supremacists and Muslim brotherhood provocateurs to help them do it. The provocateurs who are usually the masterminds of the plot get to go scott free while the patsies go to jail.

The Seas of David case is the same exact thing:
"The entire situation was concocted by the government. The warehouse was paid for by the FBI, and the defendants moved their operations there at the suggestion of an undercover informant who was also paid by the FBI. The swearing-in ceremony was led by the informant — who at another point also suggested a plan to bomb FBI offices in Miami. "The case was written, produced and directed by the FBI," defense attorney Albert Levin said in his closing arguments."
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1694430,00.html?imw=Y


"The main informant in this case was a Middle Eastern man named Elie Assad. He had worked for the FBI for years before he approached Batiste, posing as an al-Qaeda operative named "Brother Mohammad." He earned about $80,000 for his services."
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1694430,00.html?imw=Y


"At trial, however, it emerged that the men had no operational abilities, that the plots were dreamed up at the exhortation of two paid FBI informants while smoking dope and that the group had been provided its camera, military boots and warehouse by the JTTF.

Despite 15,000 surveillance recordings of the men, including one in which they swore allegiance to Osama bin Laden, the jury refused to convict. "This was all written, produced, directed, choreographed and stage-designed by the United States government," Albert Levin, an attorney for one of the accused, said in his closing argument."
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/18137343/the_fear_factory/6


"According to the indictment<6>, Batiste told an FBI informant posing as an Al Qaeda member around December 16, 2005 that he was organizing a mission to build an "Islamic Army" in order to wage jihad against the US with his "soldiers" to destroy the Sears Tower. He requested a list of materials and equipment needed to wage jihad, including boots, uniforms, machine guns, radios, and vehicles."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seas_of_david


Notice how the FBI informant is the one actually making the terror plot viable:
"Around December 22, 2005, he provided said "Al Qaeda representative" with shoe sizes of his "soldiers" and received military boots a week later. Around that same time he requested radios, binoculars, bulletproof vests, vehicles and $50,000 cash."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seas_of_david


Notice how they are being setup in Miami-Dade County. The same area where the 9/11 hijackers were allowed into the country and where votes were stolen for Bush in the 2000 election. Notice how Batiste wants to bomb the FBI. What type of idiot terrorist is going to bomb the FBI? Obviously this idea was given to Natiste by the FBI informant himself:
"Around March 10, 2006 he along with Lyglenson Lemorin met with the FBI plant in Miami-Dade County, Florida and swore fealty to Al Qaeda. Around March 16, 2006, along with Patrick Abraham, Stanley Phanor, Naudimar Herrera, Burson Augustin, Lyglenson Lemorin, and Rotschild Augustine, Batiste met with the "Al Qaeda representative," swore an oath of loyalty to Al Qaeda and discussed plans to bomb the FBI building in five cities. At this meeting, Batiste took possession of a video camera and promised to obtain "good footage" of the North Miami Beach FBI building."


Notice how Batiste can't do anything unless he is asking the FBI informant for the equipment and means to do it:
"Around March 23, 2006, Batised asked the FBI informant for a rental van for himself and his conspirators to take reconnaissance footage of the FBI building. Around March 24, 2006, Patrick Abraham drove Batiste by car by the FBI and the National Guard Armory buildings in Miami-Dade, Florida. Around the same date, they traveled with the "Al Qaeda representative" to purchase a digital camera. Around March 26, 2006, Batiste and Burson Augistin provided the FBI informant with photographs and video footage of the FBI building and the James Lawrence King Federal Justice Building, federal courthouse, Federal Detention Center, and the Miami Police Department buildings. They met again around April 6 to discuss the photographs and footage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seas_of_David


"Instead of infiltrating terror plots, informants concoct them, promising suspects access to weaponry and even high-level terrorist leaders. In a recent case involving six Muslim men accused of planning an attack on soliders at Fort Fix, the informant at the center of the investigation bragged to the suspects that he could get them sophisticated weaponry. According to the New York Times, "it was the informer who seemed to be pushing the idea of buying the deadliest items, startling at least one of the suspects."
Snitch: informants, cooperators & the corruption of justice By Ethan Brown - p.120


In the end, just another phoney terror plot concocted by the FBI and factions within the U.S. government profiting off of trashing the constitution and keeping us at war:
"The sting, which occurred in a dingy warehouse in the Liberty City section of Miami, was kick-started by an informant who told the defendants that he was an Al Qaeda member, but just as in the Siraj case, no explosives or weapons were seized from the alleged plotters. Similarly, the seven Miami defendants--who belonged to a bizarre cult called "Seas of David"--seemed not only incapable of pulling off a terror strike but also mentally incompetent. Seas of David leader Narseal Batiste refers to himself as "Prince Manna" and was known in his Liberty City neighborhood for wandering the streets in a bathrobe. And when Seas of David member "Brother Corey" gave an interview to CNN in June 2006, he offered rambling non sequiturs about the cult..... When the CNN interviewer confronted Brother Corey with rumors that the Seas of David members were homeless men, he shot back, "We are not no homeless--this is not no homeless shelter for a terrorist attack. You hear me?"
Snitch: informants, cooperators & the corruption of justice By Ethan Brown - p.132-133


How about the FBI, instead of wasting our tax dollars chasing homeless alcoholics, how about you go after all of those U.S. agents, dirty spies, defense contractors and corrupt congressmen who looked the other way when Al-Qaeda was allowed into the country to run around the U.S. freely training to fly planes??? Or what about all of those white collar Wall Street criminals and Bush cronies that stole everyone's savings and put the country and the economy in the crapper?
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bahrbearian Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Nov-21-09 11:00 AM
Response to Reply #2
8. Death for Thought Crimes ?
Two men were earlier acquitted of the charges.

The case was seen as a major step in the fight against extremist attack, but defence lawyers said the arrests were an overreaction by the authorities and that the men had no way of carrying out the plot.

"No one in the United States was ever in any danger. There were absolutely no steps taken to wage war," lawyer Ana M Jhones told AP.

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chelsea0011 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Nov-21-09 06:55 AM
Response to Original message
3. Why wasn't Lindsey Graham crying about this trial and asking to
move it to a military court. I guess you can do court trials in this country for terrorists. Who would have thought?
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CrunchMaster Donating Member (308 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Nov-21-09 11:15 PM
Response to Reply #3
11. KSM's trial scares Republicans because they are afraid their ties to terrorists might be exposed
Edited on Sat Nov-21-09 11:23 PM by CrunchMaster
If the truth were to come out that KSM didn't do half of what he has been said to have done then we all would have to ask "Who are the real Masterminds of 9/11?"

And the answer would be:

Rich guys we have been doing business with in the middle East who like certain Americans benefited from a bloody war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And this would cause a lot of Republicans to crap their pants before being led off to jail.


Rudy's Ties to a Terror Sheikh
"Three weeks after 9/11, when the roar of fighter jets still haunted the city's skyline, the emir of gas-rich Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifah al-Thani, toured Ground Zero. Although a member of the emir's own royal family had harbored the man who would later be identified as the mastermind of the attack—a man named Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, often referred to in intelligence circles by his initials, KSM—al-Thani rushed to New York in its aftermath, offering to make a $3 million donation, principally to the families of its victims. Rudy Giuliani, apparently unaware of what the FBI and CIA had long known about Qatari links to Al Qaeda, appeared on CNN with al-Thani that night and vouched for the emir when Larry King asked the mayor: "You are a friend of his, are you not?""
http://www.villagevoice.com/2007-11-20/news/rudy-s-ties-to-a-terror-sheikh/1


For fun, here's John McCain's ties to terrorists and Rudy Giuliani pointing fingers:
http://www.videonewslive.com/view/272171/rudy_giuliani_links_john_mccain_to_rashid_khalid__plo_kla__liddy_ayers
John McCain has a long history, a "track record" of associating with terrorists, both foreign and domestic. Here are the names - Rashid Khalid, Augusto Pinochet, Saddam Hussein, Al Qaeda, PLO, KLA, Contras, Oliver North, G. Gordon Liddy, William Timmons, Bill Ayers. McCain gave $450 Thousand dollars to Rashid Khalid, & anti-semite board member...
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spiritual_gunfighter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Nov-21-09 07:57 AM
Response to Original message
4. Wow
If they could convict this guy, why are the Republicans afraid of trying KSM in NYC?
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Ian David Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Nov-21-09 05:35 PM
Response to Original message
9. Well, at least now he has shoes. n/t
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