US man guilty of helping al-Qaida

A US man has been convicted of conspiring to help al-Qaida and plotting to kill US soldiers in Iraq.

Tarek Mehanna faced four terror-related charges and three charges of lying to authorities. A federal jury in Massachusetts has convicted him of all counts.

Prosecutors say Mehanna and two friends conspired to go to Yemen so they could receive training at a terrorist camp with the intention of going to Iraq to fight against US soldiers.

Prosecutors say when they could not find a camp, Mehanna returned home and began translating and distributing publications to promote violent jihad.

Mehanna’s lawyers say he went to Yemen to look for religious schools and that his online activities were protected by the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech.

His mother and lawyers wept as Mehanna was found guilty of conspiring to help al-Qaida by translating and distributing publications and of plotting to kill US soldiers in Iraq.

Prosecutors said after failing to find the camp Mehanna began to see himself as part of the al-Qaida “media wing”, translating and distributing publications to promote violent jihad.

His lawyers portrayed him as an aspiring scholar of Islam who travelled to Yemen to look for religious schools, not to get terrorist training. They said his translation and distribution of controversial publications was free speech protected by the First Amendment.

Mehanna will be sentenced April 12 and could be sent to prison for the rest of his life. His mother, Souad Mehanna, sobbed after the verdict was read.

“I can’t even think,” said Mehanna’s father, Ahmed, a professor at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences. “It was political.”

His lawyer JW Carney Jr said the defence team will appeal. He said he was upset with what he called the extraordinary leeway prosecutors had to present evidence the defence considered prejudicial, including references to al-Qaida and the September 11 attacks.

“The charges scare people. The charges scared us,” Carney said. “The more that we looked at the evidence, the more we got to know our client, Tarek, the more we believed in his innocence.”

Prosecutors focused on hundreds of online chats on Mehanna’s computer in which they said he and his friends talked about their desire to participate in jihad, or holy war.

Several of those friends were called by prosecutors to testify against Mehanna, including one man who said he, Mehanna and a third friend tried to get terrorism training in Yemen so they could fight American soldiers in Iraq.

Mehanna did not testify. His lawyers acknowledged that he expressed admiration for Osama bin Laden, but said he disagreed with bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders about many things, including the use of suicide bombers and the killing of civilians.

Jurors began deliberating on Friday. In his instructions to them, US District Judge George O’Toole Jr. told jurors that in order to find Mehanna guilty of conspiracy to provide material support to al-Qaida, they must find that he worked “in co-ordination with or at the direction of” the terrorist organisation. He said independent advocacy on behalf of the organisation is not a violation of the law.