NEW YORK MUSLIM CLERIC ARRESTED FOR TERRORISM....

Imam pleads guilty in NYC terror case
By TOM HAYS (AP)
March 4, 2010

NEW YORK — An imam linked to the suspects in an aborted suicide bomb
plot against New York City pleaded guilty on Thursday to lying to the
FBI — a deal sparing him serious jail time but forcing him to leave
the country.
A tearful Ahmad Afzali told a judge in federal court in Brooklyn that
he had wanted to help authorities in the investigation of the threat,
but lied under grilling by the FBI about his phone conversations with
admitted al-Qaida associate Najibullah Zazi.

"In doing so, I failed to live up to my obligation to this country, my
community, my family and my religion," he said. "I am truly sorry."

Under the plea deal, Afzali faces up to six months behind bars at
sentencing on April 8. It also requires the Afghanistan-born defendant
to leave the country within 90 days after completing the sentence or
face deportation.
Afterward, he told reporters, "I just signed my death sentence."

Afzali, 39, was arrested in September as federal authorities scrambled
to thwart a plot by Zazi, a Colorado airport van driver who pleaded
guilty last week to terror charges. Zazi admitted that he tested bomb-
making materials in a Denver suburb before traveling by car to New
York intending to attack the subway system to avenge U.S. military
involvement in Afghanistan.

After the New York Police Department was alerted to the possible
threat, detectives reached out to Afzali to gather information about
Zazi and two other men the imam knew from a Queens mosque, Adis
Medunjanin and Zarein Ahmedzay. Authorities say the former high school
classmates traveled together in 2008 to Pakistan, where Zazi received
explosives training.

"I had known them when they were boys, and did not think they were
capable of serious crime," Afzali said in court. "I thought perhaps
they had fallen in with the wrong crowd."

The imam said he told Zazi "that law enforcement authorities had been
to see me about him. ... I told Zazi, 'Don't get involved in
Afghanistan garbage and Iraq garbage. That's my advice to you.'"

At the time of the conversation, Zazi had already disposed of the bomb-
making materials after a police stop on the way into the city. After
the call from Afzali, he flew back to Colorado.

A few days later, under questioning by the FBI, Afzali said he
panicked.

"I believed that the FBI was angry at me for calling Zazi," he said.
"When I was asked whether I had told Zazi about law enforcement being
interested in him, I lied and said I did not."

Medunjanin and Ahmedzay have pleaded not guilty to charges they sought
to join Zazi in what prosecutors described as "three coordinated
suicide bombing attacks" on Manhattan subway lines that were timed for
one of three days after the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror
attacks.

Prosecutors say the attacks were modeled after the July 2005 bombings
on the London transit system. Four suicide bombers killed 52 people
and themselves in an attack on three subway trains and a bus in
London.

http://www.truthandgrace.com/ISLAM.htm
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