Informant says he was hoping to gain trust

[unhappycamper]

Informant says he was hoping to gain trust
By Geoff Mulvihill - The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Nov 6, 2008 21:48:44 EST

CAMDEN, N.J. — An FBI informant in the case of five men accused of planning to attack soldiers on an Army installation in New Jersey testified Thursday that he talked up the attack in order to win the confidence of an alleged plotter.

Rocco Cipparone, the lawyer for defendant Mohamad Shnewer, asked Omar repeatedly about his own words on recordings Omar secretly made for the FBI. On them, Omar endorsed attacking Fort Dix, suggested that a plot would need more participants and offered to provide weapons.

Omar calmly explained through an Arabic language interpreter that he said objectionable things so he could gain Shnewer’s trust and find out what was on his mind.

“It was not my idea, but I was going along with Mohamad,” explained Mahmoud Omar, referring to defendant Mohamad Shnewer. Omar, who was on the stand for a sixth day, is an Egyptian citizen recruited to be an FBI informant in 2005 after he was caught in a bank fraud case.

Omar also gave the same succinct answer to a series of questions about whether all the alleged plotters ever sat down to review a map of Fort Dix or details of how to carry out a plot. Each time, the answer was “no.”


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/11/ap_dixplot_110608/%2e