"...The 29-year-old Moroccan was allegedly determined to cause as much damage
as possible. But he was arrested before he left a parking garage. His "weapons"
had been rendered inoperable. One companion was an undercover agent with the
Federal Bureau of Investigation. The other was a paid informer.
Mr El Khalifi's intentions seem clear,
and he is currently in prison awaiting trial.
But the question of whether the US
government engaged in entrapment - inducing someone to commit a crime he would
otherwise not have committed - hovers over cases such as his.
Rather than looking for real plots
being hatched, critics say, the FBI is targeting the weak and vulnerable, often
in America's Muslim communities. Sometimes those efforts are led by informers,
some receiving as much as US$100,000 (Dh367,000) for their efforts.
...
It is, according to James Wedick, a
former FBI agent, "bureau theatre". The FBI, he said, is providing
"foolhardy people" all the necessary tools to become bombers and
"calling that a case and telling the American public they should feel safe
now".
Mr Wedick, who has served as a
consultant for the defence in several of these cases, criticised the heavy
reliance on paid informants. [Read More]
...
"Since September 11 it's almost as
if the bureau has lost its mind," said Mr Wedick. "We didn't do that
before. We didn't send informants into neighbourhoods, looking for people who
might be annoyed and then suggest they could become a bomber."
But claiming entrapment is rarely
successful as a legal defence. Defendants rest their case on convincing a jury
that they would not have committed the offence without the intervention of law
enforcement, which is "extremely difficult" to do, said David Cole, a
law professor at Georgetown University in Washington.
The bigger the crime, he said, the
harder it is to successfully claim entrapment.
"If you think what you are
strapping is a suicide bomb to yourself and you go out to do something, it's
hard to persuade a jury that you weren't pre-disposed." [Read More]
...
Mr Cole said law enforcement agencies
were under "tremendous pressure" to prevent incidents. But the sheer
number of such cases implied, he said, either "very good police work"
or "crime that would never have occurred had the government not induced
it. I'm confident that in some instances that's the case."
Andrea Prasow, the senior
counter-terrorism counsel with Human Rights Watch, said the real issue is how
targets are selected.
"Are they actually going after
people who they believe are going to commit crimes? Or are they finding people
who are angry and providing the impetus, assistance, support for such an
attack? And are they doing so based on race or religion?"
...
In general, Mr Wedick said he believed
only a handful of the sting operations since 2001 were "real terrorism
cases". One day, he said, "the bureau will see that these cases are
at least unethical, and may be illegal"..." [Read More]
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