Lawyer says the FBI took advantage of “bigoted and susceptible immigrants.”
This is the latest on those Iraqi “refugees” who lied (can you believe it!) on their paperwork to get into the US and were subsequently convicted on terrorism charges in Bowling Green, the refugee chicken factory capital of Kentucky. (We first reported on the arrests, here, in June 2011.)
Now, one of them is employing an unusual tactic to try to avoid a life sentence.
Read all about it in the Courier-Journal:
Hoping to avert a life sentence, one of two Iraqi refugees to be sentenced Tuesday in Kentucky for attempting to send weapons and cash to al-Qaeda alleges the government improperly schemed to get him a longer sentence.
A lawyer for Mohanad Shareef Hammadi cites a study of more than 500 terrorism prosecutions since 9/11 that found an FBI informant led more than one-third of the plots and provided all the necessary weapons, money and transportation.
In a sentencing memorandum, Hammadi’s appointed lawyer, James Earhart, says his client was unemployed and had no money, weapons or means of transporting them when he was recruited by a confidential government informant.
In the first terrorism case in Kentucky, Hammadi and Waad Ramadan Alwan are to be sentenced in Bowling Green by Senior U.S. District Court Judge Thomas B. Russell.
They both pleaded guilty to attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and lying about their backgrounds when they applied to be admitted into the United States as refugees.
They were arrested in May 2011 after they agreed to help a government informant load cash and weapons, including surface-to-air Stinger missiles, into a tractor-trailer, believing it was destined for al-Qaeda.
Alwan also pleaded guilty to attempting to kill to kill U.S. soldiers when he was an insurgent in Iraq.
The story is a long one, but please read the whole thing.
Fantasies of “bravado and bigotry.”
He [author of a report critical of the FBI—ed] says the government, understandably trying to protect Americans from terrorism, has found “bigoted and suggestible” immigrants who are incapable of committing terrorism on their own and created acts of terrorism out of their “fantasies of bravado and bigotry.”
But, wait! What is this bigotry business. Only white Americans are bigoted! And, aren’t we supposed to believe that refugees like us and that they come here seeking an opportunity for a good life!
We have 556 previous posts on Iraqi refugees in case someone out there wants to write a book!