Man who supplied guns in alleged Fort Dix terror plot sentenced to 20 months
By Troy Graham
Apr 1, 2008
Inquirer Staff Writer

Agron Abdullahu said he was sorry he ever let the Duka brothers use his guns.
At the time, he thought of them as good guys who only liked to talk big about striking back at the United States for its foreign policy.

"At no point did I ever think or know they were going to do what they said," Abdullahu said yesterday, during his sentencing. "That's, like, nuts, you know?"

Abdullahu, a 25-year-old grocery store baker, was arrested in May along with the three Duka brothers and two other foreign-born Muslims who have been accused of planning an armed attack on Fort Dix.

The Atlantic County resident was never considered to be part of the plot against the base, but he admitted to bringing guns, which he legally owned, on two trips to a Poconos firing range.

During those trips, he allowed the Dukas, who are illegal aliens, to fire them - a violation of federal law.

Although prosecutors had asked that Abdullahu serve the five-year maximum sentence, a judge in Camden yesterday gave him a 20-month term.

Because he has been locked up since his arrest nearly 11 months ago, Abdullahu could be free by the end of the year. Though he is a legal immigrant, he then could face deportation.

Abdullahu's case was the first in the sensational Fort Dix plot to reach completion. The other five defendants, who face life in prison if found guilty of plotting to kill soldiers, could reach trial this fall.

Abdullahu is not expected to testify.

In the court proceedings and papers, a more complete picture of Abdullahu and his relationship with the Dukas has begun to emerge.

Prosecutors had painted a picture of someone who knew - or should have known - that his friends had radical views and deadly intentions against American interests.

Abdullahu's friends and family described someone grateful to America for accepting his family as refugees, someone who would never harm his adopted country.

In a lengthy letter to the judge, his family members described their harrowing escape from the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo in the late 1990s.

They fled their town after 19 days of bombing and attempted to walk 80 miles to the Macedonian border. Agron Abdullahu, the oldest of four, was 16 years old.

"The walk was very hard and every second of it we were terrified that we would be seen and captured by the Serbs and killed," they wrote.

They eventually linked up with a convoy of families moving toward the border on tractors, but were intercepted by local police and Serb soldiers who robbed them.

"To us, we thought they were going to [assassinate] us because they were lining everyone up," Abdullahu's relatives wrote.

They were told to move on, and Agron drove the tractor with a flat tire, hauling 25 people.

The family reached a U.N. refugee camp in Macedonia and asked to be resettled in the United States. They arrived in 1999, eventually getting a home in Buena Vista Township.

Agron, who spoke English, became the head of the household. "So he started taking care of all . . . family responsibilities such as paying the bills, translating documents, speaking with schools . . . taking us to doctors," they wrote.

A psychologist who examined Abdullahu in jail found that he suffers from depression and anxiety, as well as post-traumatic stress disorder from his experiences in Kosovo. Abdullahu had to be hospitalized about two years ago for panic attacks, the psychologist wrote.

In the United States, Abdullahu dropped out of high school and got a job at a Shop-Rite, first as a custodian, then working his way up to a baker, sometimes logging 70 hours a week.

Dozens of his coworkers wrote to U.S. District Court Judge Robert B. Kugler, attesting to Abdullahu's character and work ethic.

"It's just striking to me how many of them said they can't believe he'd ever be involved with terrorism," Kugler said yesterday.

Abdullahu met the Duka brothers in 2000 at a pizza shop their family owned, said Abdullahu's attorney, Richard Coughlin.

They bonded as immigrants with similiar backgrounds - the Dukas are also ethnic Albanian Muslims. In the beginning, they had typical friendships, played sports together and went to clubs and out drinking.

Then, Coughlin said, one of the Duka brothers "got religion" and the other two followed suit.

Abdullahu drifted apart from the Dukas at that point. He saw them infrequently between the two Poconos trips in 2006 and 2007, Coughlin said.

But the trips were secretly recorded by one of two FBI informants who infiltrated the group. Those recordings captured Abdullahu taking part in several discussions laced with anti-American rhetoric.

On the tapes, the men laud the accomplishments of Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters, and discuss their desire to train as snipers and kill U.S. soldiers.

While shooting, the men shout "jihad" and "Allah akbar," prosecutors said, and Abdullahu discusses building bombs.

"He doesn't get in his car and leave," Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Hammer said yesterday. "He doesn't say, 'What are you talking about? This is madness.' Instead, he makes the guns available to them the next day."

Coughlin said Abdullahu considered the Dukas' talk to be "bluster and excessive venting."

While prosecutors described the Poconos trips as training for the Fort Dix attack, Coughlin described the shooting as rambunctious "chaos," and said the trips were more like a typical vacation. They also went swimming, rode horses and played basketball.

"It's not militia. It's not military training," he said. "It's just boys playing in the Poconos."

Prosecutors asked Kugler to sentence Abdullahu above the sentencing guidelines, which called for 10 to 16 months in prison, because giving guns to the Dukas threatened national security.

Kugler said giving a higher sentence on that basis would require him to find that the Dukas were dangerous before their trial.

"That's a difficult thing you're asking me to do," the judge said. "I'm not even sure the Constitution allows me to do it."

All five remaining defendants - Shain, Eljvir and Dritan Duka, as well as Mohamed Shnewer and Serdar Tatar - have pleaded not guilty.

Kugler said he did not think Abdullahu would be a threat upon his release from prison and he would not sentence him to the maximum.

"There is just too much good in this man, too many positive factors," Kugler said.

Kugler said he would sentence him to 20 months, however, because this was not an "ordinary, technical violation of the law," and he noted that Abdullahu was an active participant in the discussions about killing Americans.

"I'm convinced that this was not as innocent as he'd have us to believe," the judge said.



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