Somali man pleads guilty to plot
Wednesday, August 1, 2007 3:30 AM
By Jodi Andes
http://www.dispatch.com/dispatch/conten ... 7G1ES.html
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Nuradin Abdi is expected to be sentenced to 10 years.


Nuradin Abdi, 35, is a Somali immigrant who was arrested in November 2003 and accused of a terrorist plot to blow up a Columbus mall. He was indicted in 2004 and pleaded guilty yesterday in federal court in Columbus.

Nuradin Abdi smiled and laughed with his attorney before admitting in a federal court yesterday that he had worked with terrorists to help plot against the United States.

Abdi, who wanted to blow up a mall in the Columbus area, is expected to serve 10 years in prison and be deported to his native Somalia.

His conviction, though, could be a sign that there are others still to be named as members of the same terrorist cell.

Details brought to light yesterday show that the terror cell was bigger than a trio of local men possibly involved in it -- Abdi, convicted terrorist Iyman Faris and Worthington native Christopher Paul -- previously reported.

Documents filed yesterday in Abdi's plea state there was at least one other terrorist that Abdi and Paul met with here and in Pittsburgh.

And after the plea, government officials acknowledged for the first time that other indictments of possible terrorists who were part of the cell are likely.

"I wouldn't be surprised," Assistant U.S. Attorney Dana Peters said.

Peters and Assistant U.S. Attorney Robyn Jones Hahnert would not comment on how many are believed to have operated out of the Columbus area.

"Some have left the country," others are in prison on other charges, Peters said. "The investigation continues."

Federal Judge Algenon Marbley likely will sentence Abdi, who pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to support terrorists, in a few months. Abdi's trial was scheduled to start Monday. But he pleaded within hours of his family receiving a phone call that there could be a change.

"It's better to minimize his losses," defense attorney Mahir Sherif said. A fair trial here would not be possible because Americans "have no or limited understanding" of why Muslims are angry, Sherif said.

The terrorism plot was little more than rants by three Muslims who were angry with the Iraqi war and problems in Afghanistan, he said.

"There was nothing they were going to carry out," Sherif said.

But prosecutors say that was only because they were stopped.

Abdi, 35, of the North Side, was indicted on four counts -- two of conspiring to help terrorists and two of lying or forging paperwork to get U.S. travel documents.

As part of the plea agreement, the other three charges were dropped.

Under federal sentencing guidelines, it would have been unlikely for Abdi to get the maximum 80-year sentence even if convicted on all four counts, prosecutors said.

What Abdi was planning were not idle rants, as the defense claimed, but "significant public-safety threats," Peters said.

In court, Abdi admitted he traveled to Kenya and Somalia in 2000 in hopes of attending terrorist-training camps. The camp in Kenya, though, no longer existed, and Abdi told federal agents he couldn't find the camp in Somalia.

A year later, he stole credit-card numbers from a cell-phone store where he worked and gave them to Paul.

Paul wanted to use the credit-card numbers to buy laptop computers for Muslims fighting the "holy war" in Afghanistan, Abdi told agents.

Abdi also knew that Paul was gathering equipment to send overseas, including a scanner to make false passports.

"It goes beyond hot air when steps are taken in preparation. You don't wait for the fuse to be lit," Peters said of arresting Abdi before he chose which local mall to target. In addition, prosecutors noted, Faris -- who is serving a 20-year sentence for his involvement with the group -- worked with others in Virginia who wanted to conduct simultaneous missile attacks on the Capitol, Pentagon and White House.

Abdi's plea does not affect the case against Paul, the only American-born member of the cell who is scheduled for trial in January 2009, Hahnert said.

After the plea, Sherif said the case should prompt people to ask: Why do Muslims hate Americans?

"I'm angry. If 1 million Americans were being slaughtered, that would be a different issue," Sherif said, of Iraqis killed in the war.

TIMELINE:

1997: Abdi enters the United States from the United Arab Emirates.

April 27, 1999: Abdi applies to the Immigration and Naturalization Service, now the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, for travel papers, saying he is going to Germany and then to visit a relative in Saudi Arabia. Authorities say he actually planned to travel to Ethiopia for training in the use of radios, guns, guerrilla warfare, bombs and more.

January 2000: Abdi travels to Ethiopia and Uganda.

March 25, 2000: Abdi returns to the United States. Iyman Faris picks him up at Port Columbus.

Aug. 6, 2002: Abdi meets with Faris and Christopher Paul at an Upper Arlington coffee shop. Abdi told investigators that he suggested that the three attack a shopping mall, which court records say Paul described as "a stupid idea."

Oct. 28, 2003: A federal judge sentences Faris to 20 years in prison for conspiring with al-Qaida on an aborted plot to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge by cutting its suspension cables.

Nov. 28, 2003: Federal agents arrest Abdi at his North Side home. He is taken to his business, where his cell phone and computers are confiscated. He is charged with lying on his application to enter the United States. Officials also suspect him of being involved in a terrorist plot.

June 14, 2004: Federal officials announce that Abdi and Faris, an admitted al-Qaida member, plotted with Paul to bomb a mall, perhaps during the Christmas season. Abdi is indicted on federal charges of conspiring to support terrorism and falsifying travel documents.

Sept. 13, 2005: A federal judge says government agents appear to have arrested Abdi solely to interrogate him -- making the arrest illegal and his statements off limits. But the government's case remains intact because, two weeks later, Abdi repeated everything with an attorney at his side.

Sept. 22, 2006: An appeals court rules that federal agents legally arrested Abdi in 2003 and that his statements made in the days afterward can be used at trial.

April 11: A federal grand jury indicts Paul on charges of conspiring to support terrorists, conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction and providing support to terrorists. He is arrested outside his North Side apartment. Attorneys on both sides say that Paul, Abdi and Faris exchanged phone calls and e-mails and took trips together.

June 15: The Dispatch reports that in papers filed for Abdi's upcoming terrorism trial, Abdi paints Paul and Faris as active terrorism supporters. Abdi describes himself as a fundamentalist who simply rubbed elbows with the pair.

July 6: Federal prosecutors tell a judge that Abdi told investigators he gave stolen credit-card numbers to Paul so he could buy gear for al-Qaida.

Yesterday: Abdi pleads guilty to one count of conspiring with terrorists, six days before his trial was to begin.

Sources: Federal court documents, U.S. Department of Justice, Dispatch research

jandes@dispatch.com