Thread: FL-Wife: Husband rejected Liberty City 7 group

IMMIGRATION | LIBERTY CITY 7 CASE
Wife: Husband rejected Liberty City 7 group
The wife of a man acquitted in the Liberty City 7 trial told deportation officials that her husband fought against the religious group's leaders.
Posted on Thu, Aug. 28, 2008

By ANDRES VIGLUCCI
aviglucci@MiamiHerald.com
The wife of a Haitian immigrant facing deportation despite his acquittal on terrorism charges testified Wednesday that she and her husband quit a Liberty City religious group the government claims plotted attacks on Chicago's Sears Tower because of disagreements with its spiritual teachings and authoritarianism.

Charlene Mingo Lemorin -- testifying for the first time in the long-running case -- told an immigration judge that she never heard her husband, Lyglenson Lemorin, or any of the group's leaders or members speak about ''jihad'' or any terrorist action.

Instead, Mingo told U.S. Immigration Judge Kenneth S. Hurwitz that she and her husband objected to alleged group ringleader Narseal Batiste's advocacy of polygamy, as well as his urging they distance themselves from friends and family.

`PULLING BACK'

''We saw many things we didn't like about their teaching and the way they were leading us, and we started pulling back,'' Mingo said, speaking so softly that at one point the judge had to ask her to move her chair closer to the court's recording microphone.

Lemorin, 33, was acquitted of terrorism conspiracy by a federal jury in December, but the U.S. government placed the legal U.S. resident in deportation proceedings on virtually the same charges. The standard of proof in immigration court is lower than the ''beyond a reasonable doubt'' threshold that applies in criminal trials.

Batiste and the five remaining defendants in the so-called Liberty City 7 case face a third trial in January after two hung juries. Lemorin's attorneys have called Batiste to testify next week to bolster their contention that their client was only marginally involved in the group, and left after Batiste began talking about an alliance with al Qaeda and attacks.

They also plan to call Lemorin, who did not testify in his criminal trial, to the stand in Hurwitz's courtroom at the Krome immigration detention center, where he is detained.

`SHOCKED'

As in the criminal trial, lawyers for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have pinned a significant portion of their case on an ''oath'' to al Qaeda that group members took at the behest of Batiste. Lemorin told investigators that he was ''tricked'' into the oath.

Mingo said she was ''shocked'' to learn of the alleged oath on TV news after Lemorin and the other six men were arrested in June 2006, and said she doesn't believe her husband took it willingly. By then, the couple and their three children were living in Atlanta, where they went to get away from Batiste's group, she said. They chose Atlanta because Lemorin has a sister there and it offered a better family environment than Miami, she said.

Mingo said they accepted Batiste as a mentor for spiritual reasons and were initially excited by his teachings.




http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami-d ... 61800.html

She has every reason to lie...better safe than sorry...deport them all now.