[browardchad]

Good work -- this story broke a while ago, but it was very vague. Sounds like they have specific info and evidence now -- and we will soon hear the moans of "secret evidence" and "no proof," from the Islamists.

Jokhan is a naturalized American who was raised in Trinidad and Tobago, which has one of the largest concentrations of Muslims in the Caribbean.

There is a large concentration of Trinidadians in South Florida, and this is the first I've heard of Islam on the island -- a reminder that not all terrorists (or terrorist wannabe's) are Arab...the common denominator is Islam.

[tangodown]

I knew a Trinidadian whose grandparents had immigrated from India to Trinidad in the 1950s, apparently, there is a concentration of Bangladeshis and Indians there. He was of Indian/Hindu background.

[Catspaw]

Good work -- this story broke a while ago, but it was very vague. Sounds like they have specific info and evidence now -- and we will soon hear the moans of "secret evidence" and "no proof," from the Islamists.

Blush...all I did was wander over to the miami.com website to see what's going to happen now that the artificial reef sunk a wee bit prematurely and turned turtle--and parts of it are now sticking out of the water--and this punched me in the face. First, all the hair on my arms stood up and second, I said, "HOLY SH!T!" and posted it ASAP.

I'm waiting for the Sami Al-Arian crowd to drive down from Tampa to hold a rally for these two. Sheesh.

[Catspaw]

I haven't heard what the exact charges against these attempted terrorists are and the story doesn't say. If you find out, please post the story or let me know where it is & ping me.

[Catspaw]

Here's the follow-up from the Miami Herald:

Posted on Sat, May. 18, 2002

2 Muslims indicted in bombing plot against electrical substations
BY LARRY LEBOWITZ
llebowitz@herald.com

Two Muslims from Broward County are facing terrorism conspiracy charges after they were indicted Friday for plotting the bombing of South Florida electrical substations and a National Guard Armory as part of a ``holy war.''

The purported leader, Imran Mandhai, 19, a Pakistani national and computer-science student at Broward Community College, has been in U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service custody since Feb. 13.

Co-defendant Shueyb Mossa Jokhan was arrested by FBI anti-terrorism agents Friday morning at his Hollywood apartment. Jokhan, who turns 24 on Sunday, is a naturalized American who hails from Trinidad and Tobago.

NO LINK TO BIN LADEN

While both men attended prayer meetings at the Darul Uloom Islamic Institute in Pembroke Pines, the Broward-based jihad did not appear to be connected to Osama bin Laden or the al Qaeda operatives who perpetrated the Sept. 11 hijacking attacks, said U.S. Attorney Guy A. Lewis.

''Obviously, after Sept. 11, there's a heightened awareness on our part to these type of allegations,'' Lewis said.

Both men are charged with conspiracy to damage and destroy property with fire and explosives. Mandhai is additionally charged with soliciting Jokhan to attempt to damage the property of an energy facility.

The indictment alleges Mandhai was seeking funding to acquire AK-47 rifles, night-vision equipment, stun guns, pepper spray, smoke grenades. Clearly they were hurting for cash: At one point, Mandhai and Jokhan attempted to buy an AK-47 for $300 at a Fort Lauderdale gun show, but Jokhan's credit card was rejected. They allegedly plotted to bomb a National Guard Armory in Hollywood and electric substations with light-to-nonexistent security in Miami Shores and near Miami International Airport.

Several other targets, including Jewish community centers, were discussed, but contrary to prior reports, the group did not seriously consider bombing the mammoth Florida Power & Light generating plant at Port Everglades, the sources said.

Mandhai immigrated to South Florida from Karachi with his parents in 1998. He graduated from McArthur High School in 2000. Mandhai is in his second year of computer-science classes at BCC, where he has a work-study job in the registrar's office.

Mandhai's father, Mohammed, and immigration lawyers have previously disputed accusations that the 19-year-old could have hatched such a violent scheme and intimated he was entrapped by others.

LIVES IN HOLLYWOOD

Jokhan also lives with his family in a Hollywood apartment close to the mosque. He works at an American Express bill-processing facility in Plantation. Jokhan's family could not be reached Friday, and representatives of his lawyers did not return calls.

Authorities said the bombing campaign would have been a precursor to seeking demands from the United States and other governments, including the release of people the plotters considered to be mujahedin prisoners.

Law enforcement sources said one prisoner Mandhai was hoping to free was Hakki Cemal Aksoy, 36, a Turkish Muslim currently in prison on weapons and false documents charges.

While Aksoy was not directly named in Friday's indictment, the sources said he escorted Mandhai to gun ranges and shows between May and November 2000 and once ''showed Mandhai a collection of books on car bombs and homemade explosives at his home,'' according to the indictment.

''To my knowledge, Mr. Aksoy has nothing to do with the acts alleged in that indictment,'' said Aksoy's attorney, David O. Markus.

According to trial testimony, Aksoy was involved in a ''blood feud'' in Turkey and fled to the United States after he was accused of murdering his father's killers. He asked for political asylum in 1993, but didn't receive any response from the INS. So, in 1997, a destitute Aksoy resorted to using phony immigration papers so he could find work.

BOGUS PAPERS FOUND

Federal agents who raided Aksoy's home in November 2000 discovered the bogus immigration papers, a 9mm pistol and several ''how to'' manuals for would-be bomb builders and fugitives -- some of the same manuals Aksoy allegedly shared with Mandhai.

A federal jury convicted Aksoy in February. Last month, U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno sentenced Aksoy to 10 years in prison, eight years more than sentencing guidelines dictated. He declared Aksoy a danger to the community largely on the ''how-to'' manuals found in his home.

 

And from the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel"

U.S. says plotters aimed at FPL

By Jeff Shields
and Tanya Weinberg Staff Writers
Posted May 18 2002

A 19-year-old Pakistani immigrant and his friend, in pursuit of their own Islamic jihad, plotted to bring South Florida to its knees by bombing power stations and a National Guard Armory, federal authorities charged in an indictment unsealed Friday in Fort Lauderdale.

Imran Mandhai, a college student who emigrated from Pakistan in 1998, and Shueyb Mossa Jokhan, a 24-year-old native of Trinidad and Tobago, hoped to trigger anarchy in South Florida with the bombings, according to the indictment. They would be followed "with a list of demands to be placed on the United States government and other governments around the world," U.S. Attorney Guy Lewis said Friday.

Inspired by a supposed Islamic militant who attended the same mosque in Pembroke Pines, armed with The Anarchist Cookbook and other how-to terrorist guides, Mandhai recruited Jokhan to plan a "holy war" in South Florida, the indictment says.

The sites they targeted included the Florida Power & Light power station in Fort Lauderdale, an electrical transformer near Miami International Airport, an electrical substation in Miami Shores, and the National Guard Armory in Hollywood, federal officials have said. The conspiracy allegedly took place mostly in early 2001.

The two unsuccessfully tried to buy an AK-47 machine gun at a local gun show on April 21, 2001. On April 24 the two scouted out the power plants and then the National Guard Armory in Hollywood the following day, according to the indictment.

The two backed down after May 5, 2001, when they apparently became suspicious of a government informant, federal officials said on Friday.

Mandhai's father, who has said his son was framed, declined to comment after his son's appearance in federal court on Friday. Jokhan's family likewise declined to comment.

Mandhai was arrested on Feb. 13 by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which sought to deport him based on the same charges he now faces in federal court.

Mandhai and Jokhan, both from Hollywood, face up to 20 years in prison on a charge of conspiracy to destroy property with explosives and fire. Mandhai was also charged with soliciting Jokhan, a U.S. citizen who worked at American Express in Plantation, to bomb the FPL power station. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Sloman asked that the two be held pending a bond hearing next week.

According to law enforcement officials familiar with the case, the FBI first became aware of Mandhai through a would-be informant, who came to know Mandhai at the Darul Uloom Institute, a mosque in Pembroke Pines.

Staff and worshipers at the mosque said Mandhai had been both a worshiper and teacher there. He volunteered to teach Arabic to boys between the ages of 7 and 15, they said. But Mandhai was told not to teach any more after he struck a youth on the back with a large stick as a form of discipline, teacher Yusuf Sow said.

People at the mosque generally considered Mandhai's philosophy of corporal punishment a result of cultural differences. They regarded him as a quiet, respectful and extremely pious young man, if somewhat aggressive in his beliefs. He sometimes corrected people on the way they prayed, worshipers said.

"He taught me a few things about Islam," said convert George Wonsang, who, after the INS detained Mandhai, said Mandhai was very intelligent and didn't voice radical opinions. Mandhai was studying computers at Broward Community College and working in the Registrar's Office before his trouble began.

Sow said he noted a change in Mandhai in early 2001, when a new convert, an American named Howard, started spending time with him.

Around the mosque, Howard boasted that he was a Marine and sometimes came in openly armed with a handgun, they said. He spoke about practicing martial arts, and soon Mandhai was asking around about martial arts schools where he could train.

The two spent time together at the mosque and at times Howard would pick Mandhai up and the two would go elsewhere. Sow found Howard a little overenthusiastic and noticed he had a big influence on Mandhai.

"Prior to that, Imran was a very, very shy kid. All of a sudden he shifted from being introverted to being somewhat extroverted," said Sow. "Without Howard, he would have been the same kid out of Pakistan who thought the right thing to do was mind his own business."

Darul Uloom's religious leader, Maulana Shafayat Mohamed, said he met Howard at a wedding and about a year later Howard came to Darul Uloom and asked to be converted. He took an Islamic name that translates from the Arabic as "Sword of Allah."

No one at the mosque knew at the time that Howard was an aspiring FBI informant.

Howard approached the FBI with information about Mandhai but the FBI was unwilling to work with him, according to a federal official in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity. So the FBI inserted its own informant, the official said.

That informant, a Middle Eastern man whom Mandhai referred to as "Mohamed," showed up about March 2001, driving a sports car and dressed in black. Imran befriended him and the two allegedly began discussing plans to bomb the power plants, first scouting out the FPL plant next to Port Everglades and later involving Jokhan, who also worshiped at the mosque, according to federal officials. The FBI recorded the meetings.

"Mandhai sought funding to acquire a variety of items to engage in training for an armed struggle against the United States, otherwise known as `jihad,' including firearms and other weapons, night vision equipment, stun guns, pepper spray and smoke grenades," the indictment says.

Community activist Mohammad Javed Qureshi said he saw Mandhai's new friend "Mohamed" speak with Mandhai outside the mosque several days after Sept. 11, and thought the worst.

"That confirmed my fears. I said, `Oh, my God, there is some active recruitment going on,'" said Qureshi, who followed Mandhai outside. "I told [Mandhai's father], `I smell a rat here and you need to be more vigilant with your son.'"

But it was Mandhai's association with another man who prayed at the mosque that the government took most seriously.

According to the indictment, between May and November of 2000, Mandhai spent time with "an individual he believed to be a member of a mujahedin group in Turkey." The two went to gun ranges and on one occasion, "this individual showed Mandhai a collection of books on car bombs and homemade explosives at his home," the indictment said.

The man was named Hakki Aksoy, also known as Hasan Yilmaz, a Turkish national fleeing manslaughter charges in his homeland, the Washington official confirmed.

Aksoy was arrested in November 2000 after a search of his Hollywood home produced a handgun, fake documents, a handwritten recipe for making a nitrogen-phosphate bomb, and books for making time-delay bombs, car bombs and disposable silencers. Also found was a book, How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found.

Aksoy was also accused of shooting someone for insulting the Quran, and his cellmate later said Aksoy was fashioning a knife to kill an INS agent and his own lawyer. Aksoy was convicted in February of making false statements on his visa application of illegally possessing a firearm as an illegal alien.

At his sentencing in April, Aksoy faced between two and three years under the guidelines. But U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno considered him such a danger that he sent him to prison for the maximum 10 years.

Federal officials would not otherwise comment on Aksoy, but the indictment said Mandhai was trying to raise money to get the "mujahedin" out of prison.

Aksoy denied to prison officials that he was a terrorist. "Have you ever heard of a Turkish terrorist?" Aksoy asked investigators, according to court documents.

Mohamed, Darul Uloom's religious leader, was surprised to hear about the two men. "Oh boy, this is so sickening. I am so amazed," he said. "To know these guys are all around and you don't know what's happening."

Jeff Shields can be reached at jshields@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4531.