Undercover Officer Testifies in Subway Bomb Plot Trial (Muslim undercover cop)

NY Sun ^ | 5-18-06 | Joseph Goldstein

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A rookie police officer, with only weeks on the job, crossed paths with the would-be terrorist who is charged with plotting to bomb the Herald Square subway station. Beginning in November 2002, the undercover officer made visits to an Islamic bookstore in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, and said he listened to the store clerk, Shahawar Matin Siraj, 23, predict further attacks on New York City, possibly on Wall Street.

The officer, who testified yesterday at Mr. Siraj's trial in Brooklyn federal court under a pseudonym, Kamil Pasha, retold of conversations that suggest that Mr. Siraj drew satisfaction from tragedies ranging from suicide bombings in Israel to the loss of the space shuttle Columbia.

This snapshot of Mr. Siraj contradicts what the defense has maintained since the trial began four weeks ago. His legal team has sought to show that Mr. Siraj transformed into a would-be subway bomber from a mild-mannered young man after 2003. Around that time, Mr. Siraj met an older man who was employed by the police department as a confidential informant.

Mr. Siraj's lawyers say the police informant pushed Mr. Siraj to hate America, entrapping him into plotting against the subway station at 34th Street. If convicted, Mr. Siraj faces a maximum of 20 years in prison.

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The prosecution disclosed on Tuesday that a police officer had evidence Mr. Siraj regularly spoke on the topics of terrorism and jihad more than a year before the defendant first met the informant in late 2003. Mr. Pasha testified that in late 2002 he was making reports from the Islamic bookstore. Earlier in the trial, the confidential informant gave testimony lasting eight days.

"I asked if there would be suicide bombings in the United States," Mr. Pasha testified yesterday. "He said, 'Yes, because of the United States' support for Israel."

The two men also spoke on February 2, 2003, one day after the space shuttle Columbia broke up.

"The American people got what they deserve," Mr. Pasha recalled Mr. Siraj as saying.

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A New York Police Department officer born in Bangladesh testified Thursday that commanders assigned him straight out of the police academy to go undercover in a Muslim neighborhood as part of their response to the Sept. 11 attacks.

The undercover investigator, who is Muslim, said at a Manhattan subway bomb plot trial in federal court that he was "told to be a member of the community, hang out and get information."

One place he hung out was an Islamic bookstore near a Brooklyn mosque, where he said he heard a Pakistani immigrant charged in the plot openly praise Osama bin Laden while damning the United States.

During a conversation on the second anniversary of the 2001 destruction of the World Trade Center, Shahawar Matin Siraj "complimented bin Laden," the undercover officer told jurors.

"He said he was a talented brother and a great planner and that he hoped bin Laden planned something big for America," the officer said.

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God bless this brave officer.

[Iscool]

I'd like to know if the officer is a muzlim...I'd like to know if there's at least one good one...

[STARWISE]

Apparently he is.

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The undercover investigator, who is Muslim,

[fso301]

commanders assigned him straight out of the police academy to go undercover in a Muslim neighborhood as part of their response to the Sept. 11 attacks.

Well, with that information, it shouldn't be too difficult to figure out who this undercover officer is.