When the seven men were arrested in June 2006, federal authorities said they had broken up a dangerous home-grown terror cell plotting to blow up Chicago's Sears Tower and other landmarks.
Two trials and millions of dollars later, the government has yet to obtain a single conviction. Still, federal prosecutors will try for a third time to convince a jury that a ragtag group of homeless men known as the "Liberty City 7" plotted terrorist acts with al Qaeda.
Two previous trials ended with hung juries after lengthy deliberations. The third trial will begin January 6, a judge said at a hearing Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Miami.
The FBI used two paid informants to infiltrate the group, ending its sting with a dramatic warehouse raid. One of the informants, posing as an al Qaeda contact, said he would pay the men and give them hiking boots if they would pledge an oath to al Qaeda and take surveillance photos of buildings that al Qaeda wanted blown up.
According to testimony at the trials, the suspects did pledge their oath to the terrorist organization. After the informant bought them a camera, the men also took pictures of federal offices in Miami. The FBI even made tapes of the al Qaeda pledge and the scheme to blow up the buildings.
But at both trials, jurors had problems agreeing on convictions because no terrorist organization was aided and the materials provided were photos anyone could have taken.
Lygleson Lemorin, a 33-year-old Haitian immigrant, was acquitted of all charges at the first trial but still faces possible deportation. And so the Liberty City 7 became six.
Pierre Augustine, the father of two defendants, said his sons were homeless, gullible and framed. The pledge to al Qaeda, he said, was just stupidity.
"It's nonsense, because ... my son never traveled anywhere. How could [he] have got in touch with al Qaeda?" he said. "They came to him."
So let me ask you something. If someone agrees to kill someone for money, but it's a sting, you can still charge them with attempted murder right? Sure, no one was killed, but the INTENT was there, and that's what's important.
The pledge to al Qaeda, he said, was just stupidity.
Yes it was, and it is also criminal. It doesn't matter if Al-Qaeda wasn't aided, it matters that this guy INTENDED to aid Al-Qaeda. Make no mistake, these guys would have followed through with their plans if the authorities hadn't had broken it up, and now they are trying to weasel out of long jail sentences for conspiring to kill innocent American citizens.
If they HAD gone through with their plans, you'd see a ton of liberals coming out of the woodwork talking about "why didn't they connect the dots!"
Travis
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