Trial to examine alleged plot to kill soldiers

updated 6:12 p.m. ET Sept. 28, 2008

CAMDEN, New Jersey - The arrests seemed like a startling wakeup call to America: Federal authorities said a group of would-be terrorists were foiled in a plot to sneak onto a New Jersey military base and kill soldiers.

The federal government argues that the May 2007 arrests of Serdar Tatar, Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer and the brothers Dritan, Eljvir and Shain Duka saved innocent lives. Defense lawyers contend there was no plot and that the government paid an informant to get them to discuss one.

The trial, which opens with jury selection Monday, isn't a whodunit. The key question will center on whether the men would have done it.

The case will be watched closely because it represents a type of pre-emptive prosecution that has grown more common in U.S. terrorism cases since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks — which troubles some experts.

"Lately, the government has been instructing its informants and taking a more active approach in planning and participation" of illegal acts, said Henry Klingeman, a former federal prosecutor who was the defense lawyer in another New Jersey terrorism case three years ago.

Trial to test government's strategy
The trial will test the government's strategy in terrorism prosecutions, said Robert Chesney, a Wake Forest University law professor who studies domestic terrorism law.

Unlike many terrorism cases, the Fort Dix case doesn't involve the transfer of money to people who intended to do harm. It's about people accused of planning to take lives themselves. "It's a very important case," Chesney said.

The five suspects in the alleged Fort Dix plot all face charges of attempted murder and conspiracy to murder uniformed military personnel; four of them are also charged with weapons offenses. All have been in federal custody since they were arrested and face life in prison if they're convicted.

It could take three weeks or more just to seat a jury of 12 from the 1,500 citizens who have been called. Testimony could last for months.

The government's investigation into the alleged plot began with a tip from Brian Morgenstern, a clerk at a Circuit City electronics store in Mount Laurel.

He called police in January 2006 after he was troubled by a video that customers asked him to convert to a DVD. Authorities say the home-shot footage featured men at a firing range shouting "Allah Akbar," Arabic for "God is Great."

The government then paid Mahmoud Omar, an Egyptian national on probation in a bank fraud case, to infiltrate the group.

The 39-year-old Omar recorded hundreds of hours of conversations with the younger men, all foreign-born Muslims in their 20s who had lived for several years in the southern New Jersey suburbs of Philadelphia.

MORE FROM SECURITY

Security Section Front

Were Chinese agents at Gitmo? House panel to investigate CIA hit teams Chinese-born engineer guilty of spying Russian ballistic missile test fails Somali man's family says he's not a terrorist Security Section Front   Add Security headlines to your news reader: