Ft. Dix jurors see video of beheading victims

An hour-long al-Qaeda propaganda video and the taped "confessions" of two men about to be beheaded by masked jihadists were played for the jury in the Fort Dix terrorism trial yesterday as prosecutors graphically brought the war in Iraq into the high-profile case.

The videos had been taken from the computer of one of the five defendants charged with plotting to kill military personnel at the South Jersey Army base.

Prosecutors contend the videos support their argument that the defendants embraced the "radical Muslim philosophy" behind jihad and the indiscriminate use of violence against Americans and all other so-called enemies of Islam.

Defense attorneys had tried to block introduction of the videos, arguing that they had no connection to the case and would prejudice the jury.

The anonymously chosen jurors appeared somber, but showed little emotion as the videos were played on three large screens in the fourth-floor courtroom of U.S. District Judge Robert Kugler.

Before the tapes were played, Kugler informed the jury that he had ruled the beheadings would not be shown.

With Arabic music in the background, the first video showed two men confessing that they had worked and spied for U.S. forces in Iraq.

The tape was in Arabic, but prosecutors used Ghassan M. Hajjar, an FBI Arabic linguist, to explain and translate.

One of the victims was a bearded man in his late 40s or early 50s dressed in a white tunic. The other appeared to be in his 30s and wore an open-collar sports shirt.

Each was questioned separately from off-camera as he sat in front of a red tapestry. Both, Hajjar said, confessed to running a network of spies against the mujaheddin in Baghdad.

Interspersed during their question-and-answer sessions and between segments of the video, a phrase set to music was repeated over and over.

Asked by Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Hammer to translate, Hajjar said the refrain was "Blood should be spilled."

Hajjar, who had viewed the videos previously, described how each beheading was carried out, explaining that masked mujaheddin held the victims down and cut off their heads with a knife. The heads were then placed on the bodies and later held up to the camera.

An inscription then appeared across the screen:

"Spy: To hell, an evil refuge indeed."

Two other victims of beheadings were shown on a shorter video. Hammer then played the 60-minute propaganda tape made by "the media department" of the al-Qaeda organization in Iraq, according to a transcript provided for the jury.

The FBI said it had discovered the videos on a computer in the home of Eljvir and Shain Duka, two of the defendants.

The propaganda tape was a slick color production that combined a collage of photos and video of fighting in Iraq with interviews and speeches promoting jihad, martyrdom, and the war against "an outsider driven by the ambitions of the cross and the dreams of the Jews."

Lawyers for the two Duka brothers asked Hajjar if any language other than Arabic was heard on the videos. Hajjar said only Arabic was spoken.

The lawyers are expected to argue later that the Dukas, ethnic Albanians who came to the United States as small boys, do not speak Arabic.

The trial is scheduled to resume Monday with testimony from one of the lead FBI agents in the case and one of two key government informants, Mahmoud Omar.

Omar, an Egyptian national and convicted felon, wore a body wire and recorded dozens of conversations during a 16-month investigation that culminated May 7, 2007, with the arrests of the defendants.

He is expected to be on the stand for several days.

Charged in the case are Eljvir, 25, and Shain Duka, 27; their brother, Dritan, 29; Mohamad Shnewer, 23; and Serdar Tatar, 25.

The Dukas and Shnewer are from Cherry Hill. Tartar is a former Cherry Hill resident who was living in Philadelphia.

In other testimony yesterday, a federal firearms expert described the weaponry seized in the case, including seven assault weapons that Shain and Dritan Duka had bought at Omar's Cherry Hill apartment the night they were arrested.

Supplied by the FBI, which had set up audio and video recorders in the apartment, the weapons were four M-16 and three AK-47 assault rifles.