http://www.washingtonpost.com/world...orism-stings/2012/04/13/gIQASJ6CGT_story.html
Documents provide rare insight into FBI’s terrorism stings
Pictured Above: Shahed Hussain.Asylum seekar, FBI informant, MQM worker.
Documents provide rare insight into FBI’s terrorism stings
Pictured Above: Shahed Hussain.Asylum seekar, FBI informant, MQM worker.
A wire-wearing FBI informant named Shaheed Hussain was used in a sting operation against four Muslim men charged with trying to blow up New York synagogues and shoot down military planes.
Days before his arrest in Pittsburgh last month, Khalifa Ali al-Akili posted a remarkable message on his Facebook page: A mysterious man who spoke often of jihad had tried to interest Akili in buying a gun, then later introduced him to a second man, whom Akili was assured was “all about the struggle.”
It smelled, Akili wrote on Facebook, like a setup.
“I had a feeling that I had just played out a part in some Hollywood movie where I had just been introduced to the leader of a ‘terrorist’ sleeper cell,” Akili wrote.When he googled a phone number provided by the second man, it turned out to be to Shahed Hussain, one of the FBI’s most prolific and controversial informants for terrorism cases. Soon the sting was off; Akili was subsequently arrested on gun — not terrorism — charges, which he has denied.It was a rare miss for Hussain, 55, who has played a wealthy, dapper member of a Pakistani terrorist group in several FBI operations over nearly a decade.This role has inflamed Muslim and civil rights activists, who describe Hussain as an “agent provocateur,” and prompted harsh comments from the presiding judge in a 2010 case, who questioned his honesty and the aggressiveness of the FBI’s tactics.“I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that there would have been no crime here except the government instigated it, planned it and brought it to fruition,” said U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon at the sentencing of four men from Newburgh, N.Y., convicted on terrorism charges. She added, “That does not mean there was no crime.”Hussain declined to speak about his work for the FBI, saying in a brief phone interview, “I can’t say anything for security reasons.” The FBI declined to discuss Hussain or McMahon’s comments.But the blown Pittsburgh sting and the voluminous court records from the 2010 case have provided rare insight into a tactic used increasingly by the FBI since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in which suspects are monitored almost from the beginning of plots and provided with means to help them carry them out. The targets in such stings have included Washington’s Metro subway system, the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol.There have been 138 terrorism or national security cases involving informants since 2001, and 51 of those have come over the past three years, according to the Center on National Security at Fordham Law School in New York. The center said the government secured convictions in 91 percent of those cases.Law enforcement officials say stings are a vital tactic for heading off terrorism. But civil rights activists and others say the FBI has been identifying individuals with radical views who, despite brash talk, might have little ability to launch attacks without the government’s help.“It almost seems like the government is creating a theatrical event that produces more fear in the community,” said Michael German, a senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union and a former FBI agent who worked undercover.Yet in these terrorism stings, every attempted defense that has alleged entrapment by the government has failed, according to Fordham’s Center on National Security. The FBI said that record speaks volumes and rejected any suggestion that it has invented terrorist plots. “They present the idea,” FBI spokesman Kathleen Wright said of the targets of investigations. “It is not us coming up with these ideas.”
Officials said the subjects of these stings are the ones who first generate suspicion — by contacting terrorists overseas, attempting to secure weapons or speaking of a desire to commit violence.
One of the prosecutors in the 2010 case, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Halperin, said in court that confidential informants such as Hussain are an “important tool” for the FBI. “Mr. Hussain is Pakistani. He speaks Urdu. He speaks Pashto. He’s Muslim. He can read Arabic,” Halperin said. “All of these things make Mr. Hussain a very valuable asset for the FBI.”
The birth of an asset
In testimony for the 2010 terrorism case, for which Hussain appeared as a witness for the prosecution, he described himself as a member of a politically connected family in Pakistan who fled to the United States with his wife and children after he was falsely accused of murder during a government crackdown against the secular MQM party. He arrived on a fake British passport in 1994, Hussain testified.
In the years since, his relatives in Pakistan have transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars to him, allowing him and his family to acquire gas stations, a beverage center and a motel in Upstate New York, according to financial records produced in court. He also testified that former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto, during a trip to New York, gave his son $40,000 to buy a new car, but the judge, McMahon, questioned the veracity of the claim.
It was not the only time McMahon expressed doubts about Hussain’s honesty.
“By the end of the trial, the jury knew that Hussain had lied about his finances to at least two courts (the Northern District of New York and the Northern District Bankruptcy Court), lied to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, lied to the Town of Colonie and its school district about his residence, lied to potential customers of his motel, and lied to the IRS about his income at tax time,” wrote McMahon.
In late 2001, Hussain was arrested on federal fraud charges of helping immigrants illegally secure driver’s licenses. Hussain, who had been working as a translator for the Department of Motor Vehicles, faced a possible prison term and deportation to Pakistan. He pleaded guilty and, as part of his agreement with the government, cooperated with the FBI by going undercover to secure evidence against several former associates in the scheme, including his mistress.
Hussain excelled in this new role — a fact grudgingly accepted even by his detractors.
“Both his physical and emotional presence seemed impervious to chastisement, to exposure, to anything — nothing seemed to throw his casual defiance off course,” said Karen Greenberg, the director of Fordham’s Center on National Security, who has observed Hussain in court.
The bureau also has sent Hussain to London and Pakistan, where he infiltrated a terrorist training camp, according to court testimony.
In the summer of 2003, Hussain first adopted the persona of the suave, moneyed terrorist at the direction of the FBI. The object of the sting was Yassin Aref, an Iraqi Kurd and the spiritual leader of an Albany mosque.
Aref was convicted of participating in a plot to launder funds from the sale of a shoulder-fired missile. Aref’s attorneys said he simply saw what he thought was a loan between Hussain and the owner of a struggling pizza parlor who was also convicted. Aref and the owner of the pizza parlor were sentenced to 15 years in prison.
The informant at work
On another assignment for the FBI, Hussain went to Newburgh’s Masjid al-Ikhlas mosque 12 times before he met James Cromitie, a convert to Islam and a stocker at a Wal-Mart, in June 2008.
In a poor community, Hussain struck an odd figure, driving Hummers and BMWs and wearing designer clothes.
Salahuddin Muhammad, imam of the mosque, said in an interview that some people suspected that Hussain was an FBI informant. He was too eager to engage people in conversation about jihad, Muhammad said.
Cromitie, who attended the mosque infrequently, either didn’t hear of the suspicions of others or didn’t care.
Hussain later told the FBI that Cromitie said: “Look, brother, I might have done a lot of sin, but to die like a shaded (martyr), I will go to paradise .?.?. I want to do something to America.”
By July, Hussain had told Cromitie he was part of a Pakistani terrorist group. Cromitie, who had multiple drug convictions but no history of violence, said he wanted to join, according to the FBI’s debriefing of the informant.
During a November 2008 trip to Philadelphia with Hussain, which coincided with the terrorist attacks on several locations in Mumbai, India, Cromitie made some of his most incendiary statements.
Cromitie hadn’t heard of the attacks, but Hussain pointed out that one of the targets in Mumbai was a Jewish center, according to transcripts of conversations that were secretly recorded and later played in court.
“I’d like to get a synagogue,” Cromitie said.
The judge later noted in a finding of fact that “whenever Hussain asked Cromitie to act on those sentiments — make a plan, pick a target, find recruits, introduce the [confidential informant] to like-minded brothers, procure guns and conduct surveillance — Cromitie did none of the above.”
McMahon said that at this point Hussain began to add “more worldly inducements” to the “offer of paradise” beginning with a BMW “but only after Cromitie had completed a mission.”
Closing the net
Hussain left for Pakistan on Dec. 18, 2008, and didn’t return to the United States for two months. While he was away, the FBI briefed officials at Stewart International Airport in New York on the investigation but assured them that “Cromitie was unlikely to commit an act without the support of the FBI source.”
Indeed, Cromitie said, “I just dropped everything,” according to the transcript of the conversation. But when Hussain returned, Cromitie’s enthusiasm was rekindled.
McMahon later wrote that “the court believes and specifically finds that it was about this time when Hussain offered Cromitie as much as a quarter million dollars to participate in a mission.”
Such an offer was not authorized by the FBI, the prosecutor told the court. Hussain denied making it, saying the reference to a specific amount of money was not intended to be literal. McMahon, in her sentencing, said she did not believe him.
After a surveillance drive around Stewart Air National Guard Base on Feb. 24, 2009, Cromitie cut off communication with Hussain for six weeks, he later testified. Cromitie pretended to have left town, although he was still in Newburgh.
On April 5, Cromitie called Hussain. “I have to try to make some money, brother,” Cromitie said.
“I told you. I can make you $250,000, but you don’t want it, brother. What can I tell you,” Hussain said.
Cromitie soon was back in.
On May 20, 2009, Hussain, Cromitie and three associates drove south from Newburgh carrying three duffel bags, each stuffed with nearly 40 pounds of explosives and 500 steel ball bearings to maximize casualties at a synagogue and a Jewish community center in the Bronx. After bombing them, the men planned to double back north to Stewart Air National Guard base near Newburgh to launch a stinger missile at parked military planes.
But the FBI had provided the bombs and the missile and had rendered them harmless.
All four Newburgh men were later convicted on terrorism charges in a jury trial and sentenced to 25 years in prison. They have appealed.
On the final drive to the Bronx, Hussain tried to get Cromitie to prime the bombs by following his instructions on which wires to connect, Hussain testified. But Cromitie and the others couldn’t figure it out, and Hussain had to stop the car and do it himself.
When they got to the Bronx, Hussain had to explain how to operate a car key fob so Cromitie could open the first of the pre-parked cars and plant the bomb.
Afterward, Hussain asked him if he had turned the bomb on. “I forgot,” Cromitie replied.
Hussain told him not to worry, it could still be detonated.
Cromitie then set off to plant the other two bombs, but he couldn’t open the trunk of the next car. Hussain told Cromitie by walkie-talkie to just put them in the back seat.
Hussain then signaled for the FBI to move in.
Staff writer Julie Tate contributed to this report.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/08/fbi-terrorist-informants?page=6
Mother Jones: The informants (Extract):
SO WHAT REALLY HAPPENS AS AN informant works his target, sometimes over a period of years, and eases him over the line? For the answer to that, consider once more the case ofJames Cromitie, the Walmart stocker with a hatred of Jews. Cromitie was the ringleader in the much-publicized Bronx synagogue bombing plot that went to trial last year. But a closer look at the record reveals that while Cromitie was no one's idea of a nice guy, whatever leadership existed in the plot emanated from his sharply dressed, smooth-talking friend Maqsood, a.k.a. FBI informant Shahed Hussain.
A Pakistani refugee who claimed to be friends with Benazir Bhutto and had a soft spot for fancy cars, Hussain was by then one of the FBI's more successful counterterrorism informants. (See our timeline of Hussain's career as an informant.) He'd originally come to the bureau's attention when he was busted in a DMV scam that charged test takers $300 to $500 for a license. Having "worked off" those charges, he'd transitioned from indentured informant to paid snitch, earning as much as $100,000 per assignment.
Hussain was assigned to visit a mosque in Newburgh, where he would start conversations with strangers about jihad. "I was finding people who would be harmful, and radicals, and identify them for the FBI," Hussain said during Cromitie's trial. Most of the mosque's congregants were poor, and Hussain, who posed as a wealthy businessman and always arrived in one of his four luxury cars—a Hummer, a Mercedes, two different BMWs—made plenty of friends. But after more than a year working the local Muslim community, he had not identified a single actual target.
Then, one day in June 2008, Cromitie approached Hussain in the parking lot outside the mosque. The two became friends, and Hussain clearly had Cromitie's number. "Allah didn't bring you here to work for Walmart," hetold him at one point.
Cromitie, who once claimed he could "con the corn from the cob," had a history of mental instability. He told a psychiatrist that he saw and heard things that weren't there and had twice tried to commit suicide. He told tall tales, most of them entirely untrue—like the one about how his brother stole $126 million worth of stuff from Tiffany.
Exactly what Hussain and Cromitie talked about in the first four months of their relationship isn't known, because the FBI did not record those conversations. Based on later conversations, it's clear that Hussain cultivated Cromitie assiduously. He took the target, all expenses paid by the FBI, to an Islamic conference in Philadelphia to meet Imam Siraj Wahhaj, a prominent African-American Muslim leader. He helped pay Cromitie's rent. He offered to buy him a barbershop. Finally, he asked Cromitie to recruit others and help him bomb synagogues.
On April 7, 2009, at 2:45 p.m., Cromitie and Hussain sat on a couch inside an FBI cover house on Shipp Street in Newburgh. A hidden camera was trained on the living room.
"I don't want anyone to get hurt," Cromitie told the informant.
"Who? I—"
"Think about it before you speak," Cromitie interrupted.
"If there is American soldiers, I don't care," Hussain said, trying a fresh angle.
"Hold up," Cromitie agreed. "If it's American soldiers, I don't even care."
"If it's kids, I care," Hussain said. "If it's women, I care."
"I care. That's what I'm worried about. And I'm going to tell you, I don't care if it's a whole synagogue of men."
"Yep."
"I would take 'em down, I don't even care. 'Cause I know they are the ones."
"We have the equipment to do it."
"See, see, I'm not worried about nothing. Ya know? What I'm worried about is my safety," Cromitie said.
"Oh, yeah, safety comes first."
"I want to get in and I want to get out."
"Trust me," Hussain assured.
At Cromitie's trial, Hussain would admit that he created the—in his word—"impression" that Cromitie would make a lot of money by bombing synagogues.
"I can make you $250,000, but you don't want it, brother," he once told Cromitie when the target seemed hesitant. "What can I tell you?" (Asked about the exchange in court, Hussain said that "$250,000" was simply a code word for the bombing plot—a code word, he admitted, that only he knew.)
But whether for ideology or money, Cromitie did recruit three others, and they did take photographs of Stewart International Airport in Newburgh as well as of synagogues in the Bronx. On May 20, 2009, Hussain drove Cromitie to the Bronx, where Cromitie put what he believed were bombs inside cars he thought had been parked by Hussain's coconspirators. Once all the dummy bombs were placed, Cromitie headed back to the getaway car—Hussain was in the driver's seat—and then a SWAT team surrounded the car.
At trial, Cromitie told the judge: "I am not a violent person. I've never been a terrorist, and I never will be. I got myself into this stupid mess. I know I said a lot of stupid stuff." He was sentenced to 25 years.
For his trouble, the FBI paid Hussain $96,000. Then he moved on to another case, another mosque, somewhere in the United States.
Time line of Shahid Hussain(MQM) Career:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/08/shahed-hussain-fbi-informant
Court record of cross examination under oath:
He confirms he is an MQM member. About his various crimes. How he trapped the victims. He also discusses how transferred hunderd and thousand of dollars from Pakistan.
https://www.documentcloud.org/docum...hahed-included-redirect.html#document/p30/a13
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/230990-9-21-10.html#document/p81/a12
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/230984-9-16-10.html#document/p183/a30527
Chapter 13 Bankruptcy Document:
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/231554-shahedhussainbankruptcy.html
Initial FBI complaint:
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/231512-1-complaint.html
The target that exposed Shahid Hussain:
http://www.emptywheel.net/2012/03/20/so-much-for-the-fbis-100000-informant/#more-25804
http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/FBI-informant-in-upstate-stings-including-3414108.php#page-1
Details of known cases:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/08/hussain-allansi-fbi-informants
MQM Agent in action:
Full transcript of Video:
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/231549-albany-video-transcript-11-20-2003.html
Democracy now special:
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/10/6/entrapment_or_foiling_terror_fbis_reliance
Neburgh four plot, Entrapped by Shahid hussain:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/12/newburgh-four-fbi-entrapment-terror
http://www.thenation.com/slideshow/155770/slide-show-were-newburgh-four-victims-fbi-entrapment
Interview of Aunt of David Williams(African-american convert) a victim of Shahid Hussein sent to jail for 25 years:
http://aseerun.org/tag/shahed-hussain/
MQM USA:
Note Arshad Hussain, possibly related to Shahed Hussain. MQM workers please confirm [hilar]
http://www.mqmusa.com/content/mqm-usa-organizational-chart
FBI Informants:
Shahid Hussain isnt alone.FBI employs 15 000 spies to infiltrate Muslim communities in United States.http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/08/fbi-terrorist-informants
http://electronicintifada.net/content/undercover-persecution-muslim-americans/11164
FBI informant in California who quit unlike Shahed Hussain:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/20/fbi-informant/print
Note: There you have at MQM also helps Uncle sam trap guillable Muslim in the UK and US. If it was single case stopping a real terrorist attack it would be commendable. But trapping vulnerable people'(Poor people, New converts, Minorities) for FBI for money and to avoid jail is sick.
From the fund transfer, trips to Pakistan ,history and sworn testimony its clear he is an active MQM member.
This is just a single case that got leaked and reported. God knows what else they do for their Lords. Explains this doesnt it:
Days before his arrest in Pittsburgh last month, Khalifa Ali al-Akili posted a remarkable message on his Facebook page: A mysterious man who spoke often of jihad had tried to interest Akili in buying a gun, then later introduced him to a second man, whom Akili was assured was “all about the struggle.”
It smelled, Akili wrote on Facebook, like a setup.
“I had a feeling that I had just played out a part in some Hollywood movie where I had just been introduced to the leader of a ‘terrorist’ sleeper cell,” Akili wrote.When he googled a phone number provided by the second man, it turned out to be to Shahed Hussain, one of the FBI’s most prolific and controversial informants for terrorism cases. Soon the sting was off; Akili was subsequently arrested on gun — not terrorism — charges, which he has denied.It was a rare miss for Hussain, 55, who has played a wealthy, dapper member of a Pakistani terrorist group in several FBI operations over nearly a decade.This role has inflamed Muslim and civil rights activists, who describe Hussain as an “agent provocateur,” and prompted harsh comments from the presiding judge in a 2010 case, who questioned his honesty and the aggressiveness of the FBI’s tactics.“I believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that there would have been no crime here except the government instigated it, planned it and brought it to fruition,” said U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon at the sentencing of four men from Newburgh, N.Y., convicted on terrorism charges. She added, “That does not mean there was no crime.”Hussain declined to speak about his work for the FBI, saying in a brief phone interview, “I can’t say anything for security reasons.” The FBI declined to discuss Hussain or McMahon’s comments.But the blown Pittsburgh sting and the voluminous court records from the 2010 case have provided rare insight into a tactic used increasingly by the FBI since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in which suspects are monitored almost from the beginning of plots and provided with means to help them carry them out. The targets in such stings have included Washington’s Metro subway system, the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol.There have been 138 terrorism or national security cases involving informants since 2001, and 51 of those have come over the past three years, according to the Center on National Security at Fordham Law School in New York. The center said the government secured convictions in 91 percent of those cases.Law enforcement officials say stings are a vital tactic for heading off terrorism. But civil rights activists and others say the FBI has been identifying individuals with radical views who, despite brash talk, might have little ability to launch attacks without the government’s help.“It almost seems like the government is creating a theatrical event that produces more fear in the community,” said Michael German, a senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union and a former FBI agent who worked undercover.Yet in these terrorism stings, every attempted defense that has alleged entrapment by the government has failed, according to Fordham’s Center on National Security. The FBI said that record speaks volumes and rejected any suggestion that it has invented terrorist plots. “They present the idea,” FBI spokesman Kathleen Wright said of the targets of investigations. “It is not us coming up with these ideas.”
Officials said the subjects of these stings are the ones who first generate suspicion — by contacting terrorists overseas, attempting to secure weapons or speaking of a desire to commit violence.
One of the prosecutors in the 2010 case, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Halperin, said in court that confidential informants such as Hussain are an “important tool” for the FBI. “Mr. Hussain is Pakistani. He speaks Urdu. He speaks Pashto. He’s Muslim. He can read Arabic,” Halperin said. “All of these things make Mr. Hussain a very valuable asset for the FBI.”
The birth of an asset
In testimony for the 2010 terrorism case, for which Hussain appeared as a witness for the prosecution, he described himself as a member of a politically connected family in Pakistan who fled to the United States with his wife and children after he was falsely accused of murder during a government crackdown against the secular MQM party. He arrived on a fake British passport in 1994, Hussain testified.
In the years since, his relatives in Pakistan have transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars to him, allowing him and his family to acquire gas stations, a beverage center and a motel in Upstate New York, according to financial records produced in court. He also testified that former Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto, during a trip to New York, gave his son $40,000 to buy a new car, but the judge, McMahon, questioned the veracity of the claim.
It was not the only time McMahon expressed doubts about Hussain’s honesty.
“By the end of the trial, the jury knew that Hussain had lied about his finances to at least two courts (the Northern District of New York and the Northern District Bankruptcy Court), lied to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, lied to the Town of Colonie and its school district about his residence, lied to potential customers of his motel, and lied to the IRS about his income at tax time,” wrote McMahon.
In late 2001, Hussain was arrested on federal fraud charges of helping immigrants illegally secure driver’s licenses. Hussain, who had been working as a translator for the Department of Motor Vehicles, faced a possible prison term and deportation to Pakistan. He pleaded guilty and, as part of his agreement with the government, cooperated with the FBI by going undercover to secure evidence against several former associates in the scheme, including his mistress.
Hussain excelled in this new role — a fact grudgingly accepted even by his detractors.
“Both his physical and emotional presence seemed impervious to chastisement, to exposure, to anything — nothing seemed to throw his casual defiance off course,” said Karen Greenberg, the director of Fordham’s Center on National Security, who has observed Hussain in court.
The bureau also has sent Hussain to London and Pakistan, where he infiltrated a terrorist training camp, according to court testimony.
In the summer of 2003, Hussain first adopted the persona of the suave, moneyed terrorist at the direction of the FBI. The object of the sting was Yassin Aref, an Iraqi Kurd and the spiritual leader of an Albany mosque.
Aref was convicted of participating in a plot to launder funds from the sale of a shoulder-fired missile. Aref’s attorneys said he simply saw what he thought was a loan between Hussain and the owner of a struggling pizza parlor who was also convicted. Aref and the owner of the pizza parlor were sentenced to 15 years in prison.
The informant at work
On another assignment for the FBI, Hussain went to Newburgh’s Masjid al-Ikhlas mosque 12 times before he met James Cromitie, a convert to Islam and a stocker at a Wal-Mart, in June 2008.
In a poor community, Hussain struck an odd figure, driving Hummers and BMWs and wearing designer clothes.
Salahuddin Muhammad, imam of the mosque, said in an interview that some people suspected that Hussain was an FBI informant. He was too eager to engage people in conversation about jihad, Muhammad said.
Cromitie, who attended the mosque infrequently, either didn’t hear of the suspicions of others or didn’t care.
Hussain later told the FBI that Cromitie said: “Look, brother, I might have done a lot of sin, but to die like a shaded (martyr), I will go to paradise .?.?. I want to do something to America.”
By July, Hussain had told Cromitie he was part of a Pakistani terrorist group. Cromitie, who had multiple drug convictions but no history of violence, said he wanted to join, according to the FBI’s debriefing of the informant.
During a November 2008 trip to Philadelphia with Hussain, which coincided with the terrorist attacks on several locations in Mumbai, India, Cromitie made some of his most incendiary statements.
Cromitie hadn’t heard of the attacks, but Hussain pointed out that one of the targets in Mumbai was a Jewish center, according to transcripts of conversations that were secretly recorded and later played in court.
“I’d like to get a synagogue,” Cromitie said.
The judge later noted in a finding of fact that “whenever Hussain asked Cromitie to act on those sentiments — make a plan, pick a target, find recruits, introduce the [confidential informant] to like-minded brothers, procure guns and conduct surveillance — Cromitie did none of the above.”
McMahon said that at this point Hussain began to add “more worldly inducements” to the “offer of paradise” beginning with a BMW “but only after Cromitie had completed a mission.”
Closing the net
Hussain left for Pakistan on Dec. 18, 2008, and didn’t return to the United States for two months. While he was away, the FBI briefed officials at Stewart International Airport in New York on the investigation but assured them that “Cromitie was unlikely to commit an act without the support of the FBI source.”
Indeed, Cromitie said, “I just dropped everything,” according to the transcript of the conversation. But when Hussain returned, Cromitie’s enthusiasm was rekindled.
McMahon later wrote that “the court believes and specifically finds that it was about this time when Hussain offered Cromitie as much as a quarter million dollars to participate in a mission.”
Such an offer was not authorized by the FBI, the prosecutor told the court. Hussain denied making it, saying the reference to a specific amount of money was not intended to be literal. McMahon, in her sentencing, said she did not believe him.
After a surveillance drive around Stewart Air National Guard Base on Feb. 24, 2009, Cromitie cut off communication with Hussain for six weeks, he later testified. Cromitie pretended to have left town, although he was still in Newburgh.
On April 5, Cromitie called Hussain. “I have to try to make some money, brother,” Cromitie said.
“I told you. I can make you $250,000, but you don’t want it, brother. What can I tell you,” Hussain said.
Cromitie soon was back in.
On May 20, 2009, Hussain, Cromitie and three associates drove south from Newburgh carrying three duffel bags, each stuffed with nearly 40 pounds of explosives and 500 steel ball bearings to maximize casualties at a synagogue and a Jewish community center in the Bronx. After bombing them, the men planned to double back north to Stewart Air National Guard base near Newburgh to launch a stinger missile at parked military planes.
But the FBI had provided the bombs and the missile and had rendered them harmless.
All four Newburgh men were later convicted on terrorism charges in a jury trial and sentenced to 25 years in prison. They have appealed.
On the final drive to the Bronx, Hussain tried to get Cromitie to prime the bombs by following his instructions on which wires to connect, Hussain testified. But Cromitie and the others couldn’t figure it out, and Hussain had to stop the car and do it himself.
When they got to the Bronx, Hussain had to explain how to operate a car key fob so Cromitie could open the first of the pre-parked cars and plant the bomb.
Afterward, Hussain asked him if he had turned the bomb on. “I forgot,” Cromitie replied.
Hussain told him not to worry, it could still be detonated.
Cromitie then set off to plant the other two bombs, but he couldn’t open the trunk of the next car. Hussain told Cromitie by walkie-talkie to just put them in the back seat.
Hussain then signaled for the FBI to move in.
Staff writer Julie Tate contributed to this report.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/08/fbi-terrorist-informants?page=6
Mother Jones: The informants (Extract):
SO WHAT REALLY HAPPENS AS AN informant works his target, sometimes over a period of years, and eases him over the line? For the answer to that, consider once more the case ofJames Cromitie, the Walmart stocker with a hatred of Jews. Cromitie was the ringleader in the much-publicized Bronx synagogue bombing plot that went to trial last year. But a closer look at the record reveals that while Cromitie was no one's idea of a nice guy, whatever leadership existed in the plot emanated from his sharply dressed, smooth-talking friend Maqsood, a.k.a. FBI informant Shahed Hussain.
A Pakistani refugee who claimed to be friends with Benazir Bhutto and had a soft spot for fancy cars, Hussain was by then one of the FBI's more successful counterterrorism informants. (See our timeline of Hussain's career as an informant.) He'd originally come to the bureau's attention when he was busted in a DMV scam that charged test takers $300 to $500 for a license. Having "worked off" those charges, he'd transitioned from indentured informant to paid snitch, earning as much as $100,000 per assignment.
Hussain was assigned to visit a mosque in Newburgh, where he would start conversations with strangers about jihad. "I was finding people who would be harmful, and radicals, and identify them for the FBI," Hussain said during Cromitie's trial. Most of the mosque's congregants were poor, and Hussain, who posed as a wealthy businessman and always arrived in one of his four luxury cars—a Hummer, a Mercedes, two different BMWs—made plenty of friends. But after more than a year working the local Muslim community, he had not identified a single actual target.
Then, one day in June 2008, Cromitie approached Hussain in the parking lot outside the mosque. The two became friends, and Hussain clearly had Cromitie's number. "Allah didn't bring you here to work for Walmart," hetold him at one point.
Cromitie, who once claimed he could "con the corn from the cob," had a history of mental instability. He told a psychiatrist that he saw and heard things that weren't there and had twice tried to commit suicide. He told tall tales, most of them entirely untrue—like the one about how his brother stole $126 million worth of stuff from Tiffany.
Exactly what Hussain and Cromitie talked about in the first four months of their relationship isn't known, because the FBI did not record those conversations. Based on later conversations, it's clear that Hussain cultivated Cromitie assiduously. He took the target, all expenses paid by the FBI, to an Islamic conference in Philadelphia to meet Imam Siraj Wahhaj, a prominent African-American Muslim leader. He helped pay Cromitie's rent. He offered to buy him a barbershop. Finally, he asked Cromitie to recruit others and help him bomb synagogues.
On April 7, 2009, at 2:45 p.m., Cromitie and Hussain sat on a couch inside an FBI cover house on Shipp Street in Newburgh. A hidden camera was trained on the living room.
"I don't want anyone to get hurt," Cromitie told the informant.
"Who? I—"
"Think about it before you speak," Cromitie interrupted.
"If there is American soldiers, I don't care," Hussain said, trying a fresh angle.
"Hold up," Cromitie agreed. "If it's American soldiers, I don't even care."
"If it's kids, I care," Hussain said. "If it's women, I care."
"I care. That's what I'm worried about. And I'm going to tell you, I don't care if it's a whole synagogue of men."
"Yep."
"I would take 'em down, I don't even care. 'Cause I know they are the ones."
"We have the equipment to do it."
"See, see, I'm not worried about nothing. Ya know? What I'm worried about is my safety," Cromitie said.
"Oh, yeah, safety comes first."
"I want to get in and I want to get out."
"Trust me," Hussain assured.
At Cromitie's trial, Hussain would admit that he created the—in his word—"impression" that Cromitie would make a lot of money by bombing synagogues.
"I can make you $250,000, but you don't want it, brother," he once told Cromitie when the target seemed hesitant. "What can I tell you?" (Asked about the exchange in court, Hussain said that "$250,000" was simply a code word for the bombing plot—a code word, he admitted, that only he knew.)
But whether for ideology or money, Cromitie did recruit three others, and they did take photographs of Stewart International Airport in Newburgh as well as of synagogues in the Bronx. On May 20, 2009, Hussain drove Cromitie to the Bronx, where Cromitie put what he believed were bombs inside cars he thought had been parked by Hussain's coconspirators. Once all the dummy bombs were placed, Cromitie headed back to the getaway car—Hussain was in the driver's seat—and then a SWAT team surrounded the car.
At trial, Cromitie told the judge: "I am not a violent person. I've never been a terrorist, and I never will be. I got myself into this stupid mess. I know I said a lot of stupid stuff." He was sentenced to 25 years.
For his trouble, the FBI paid Hussain $96,000. Then he moved on to another case, another mosque, somewhere in the United States.
Time line of Shahid Hussain(MQM) Career:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/08/shahed-hussain-fbi-informant
| 1994 | Shahed Hussain, whose family owns a chain of restaurants in Pakistan, is arrested in Karachi on a murder charge—trumped up, he says, for political reasons. His father bribes an officer to secure his release, and Hussain flees to the United States. |
| 1995– 2000 | Hussain works his way up from a $4 per hour job as a gas station attendant to owning a convenience store and a house in a middle-class suburb of Albany, New York. |
| 2000–01 | Fluent in multiple languages, including Urdu and Dutch, Hussain takes a job as a DMV translator. He starts a side business helping DMV test takers cheat for $300 to $500 each. |
| January 2002 | Facing criminal charges and deportation after the DMV scam is busted, Hussain becomes an FBI informant. His first assignment: wearing a wire to gather evidence on 13 associates in the driver's license scam. Some of the targets are his friends. |
| 2002 | Hussain, who will later testify that his family has a long-standing friendship with former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto's, brings his son to visit Bhutto in her hotel room at the Ritz-Carlton in New York. Bhutto asks the boy, "How old are you?" His answer: 17. "Let me buy you a car," she replies, according to Hussain, and gives him $40,000 with instructions to purchase a Mercedes-Benz. |
| August 2003 | Hussain files for Chapter 13 bankruptcy, reporting nearly $180,000 in debts. He fails to tell the court of the Pakistani trust fund from which he will eventually withdraw$500,000. |
| November 2003 | Hussain meets with Mohammed M. Hossain, a Bangladeshi immigrant who owns a pizzeria in Albany. Following FBI instructions, Hussain brags about importing weapons for his "mujahid brothers" to use in the United States and shows off a Stinger missile "for destroying airplanes." |
| January 2004 | Hussain gives the pizzeria owner $5,000 in cash. Yassin Aref, a local imam—and the FBI's primary target in the sting—is brought in to oversee the transaction. "Let's do some business, okay? Let's make some money, okay?" Hussain says in a surveillance video. His FBI marching orders are to make it clear the money is being laundered for terrorists, but the pizzeria owner seems to think it's just a loan: "I just need to keep going, just so I can pay the bills," he says. Both he and Aref will be convicted of money laundering and material support and sentenced to 15 years in prison. |
| 2005 | Hussain buys his son a new car; this time it's an Audi. |
| August 2006 | After swearing to the bankruptcy court that he can't afford to pay his debts, Hussain buys a run-down hotel in upstate New York and puts it in his wife's name. Two years later, three guests sue Hussain for fraud after he takes prepaid reservations for rooms that are not actually available. |
| 2007–2008 | Having "worked off" the DMV scam charges, Hussain becomes a paid FBI informant. He's assigned to spend time in mosques in Newburgh, New York, and look for, in his words, "radicals"—a job that will make himnearly $100,000. |
| October 2007 | Hussain's case is settled in bankruptcy court. He convinces the court he can't start making payments on his remaining debts for four years. |
| 2008 | Hussain befriends a Newburgh man namedJames Cromitie and takes him to an Islamic conference in Philadelphia, all expenses paidby the FBI. They end up talking about the Mumbai attacks, and Hussain points outthat one of the gunmen's targets was a Jewish community center. "I'd like to get one of those," Cromitie responds. "I'd like to get a synagogue." |
| May 20, 2009 | Hussain drives Cromitie and three other men to Riverdale, in the Bronx, where Cromitie places what he believes are bombs outside synagogues. They are arrested. |
| September 21, 2010 | Hussain testifies that he created the"impression" that Cromitie would make a lot of money for his role in the bombings. |
| June 29, 2011 | US District Judge Colleen McMahon sentences Cromitie to 25 years in prison but points out from the bench that the FBI played a key role. "It created acts of terrorism out of his fantasies of bravado and bigotry," she says, "and then made those fantasies come true." |
Court record of cross examination under oath:
He confirms he is an MQM member. About his various crimes. How he trapped the victims. He also discusses how transferred hunderd and thousand of dollars from Pakistan.
https://www.documentcloud.org/docum...hahed-included-redirect.html#document/p30/a13
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/230990-9-21-10.html#document/p81/a12
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/230984-9-16-10.html#document/p183/a30527
Chapter 13 Bankruptcy Document:
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/231554-shahedhussainbankruptcy.html
Initial FBI complaint:
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/231512-1-complaint.html
The target that exposed Shahid Hussain:
http://www.emptywheel.net/2012/03/20/so-much-for-the-fbis-100000-informant/#more-25804
http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/FBI-informant-in-upstate-stings-including-3414108.php#page-1
Details of known cases:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/08/hussain-allansi-fbi-informants
MQM Agent in action:
Full transcript of Video:
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/231549-albany-video-transcript-11-20-2003.html
Democracy now special:
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/10/6/entrapment_or_foiling_terror_fbis_reliance
Neburgh four plot, Entrapped by Shahid hussain:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/12/newburgh-four-fbi-entrapment-terror
http://www.thenation.com/slideshow/155770/slide-show-were-newburgh-four-victims-fbi-entrapment
Interview of Aunt of David Williams(African-american convert) a victim of Shahid Hussein sent to jail for 25 years:
http://aseerun.org/tag/shahed-hussain/
MQM USA:
Note Arshad Hussain, possibly related to Shahed Hussain. MQM workers please confirm [hilar]
FBI Informants:
Shahid Hussain isnt alone.FBI employs 15 000 spies to infiltrate Muslim communities in United States.http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/08/fbi-terrorist-informants
http://electronicintifada.net/content/undercover-persecution-muslim-americans/11164
FBI informant in California who quit unlike Shahed Hussain:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/20/fbi-informant/print
Note: There you have at MQM also helps Uncle sam trap guillable Muslim in the UK and US. If it was single case stopping a real terrorist attack it would be commendable. But trapping vulnerable people'(Poor people, New converts, Minorities) for FBI for money and to avoid jail is sick.
From the fund transfer, trips to Pakistan ,history and sworn testimony its clear he is an active MQM member.
This is just a single case that got leaked and reported. God knows what else they do for their Lords. Explains this doesnt it:
