Fort Dix informant wraps up testimony

Mahmoud Omar, the key government informant in the Fort Dix terrorism trial, completed his 13th and final day of testimony yesterday by again explaining conversations that he had secretly recorded for the FBI during a 16-month undercover operation.

The prosecution has alleged that Omar's tapes, the linchpin of its case, lay out the details of a conspiracy by five foreign-born Muslims to launch a jihad-inspired attack on the South Jersey military base.

But defense attorneys, pointing to many of the same conversations used to support the charges, contend that Omar, 39, befriended and then manipulated the much younger defendants to create a conspiracy where none existed.

Since Omar took the stand Oct. 28, the anonymously chosen U.S. District Court jury in Camden has been shown transcript after transcript of conversations that Omar recorded between March 2006, when he began working for the FBI, and May 2007, when the defendants were arrested.

The conversations, most with lead defendant Mohamad Shnewer, as well as trips made by Shnewer and Omar to conduct "surveillance" of Fort Dix and Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, have been examined and analyzed in detail before the jury.

Shnewer and Omar also discussed several other plots and schemes, including a rocket attack on the Philadelphia Navy Yard during the Army-Navy game, a plan to hijack a gasoline tanker truck and use it in a suicide mission, and a proposal to shoot down military transport planes as they flew out of Dover or McGuire Air Force Base, adjacent to Fort Dix.

Omar, as he had earlier in his testimony, insisted under questioning from Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Hammer yesterday that Shnewer had been "serious" about the plots. He also said that at various times the other defendants had agreed to take part in the Fort Dix assault.

But under questioning from defense attorneys, Omar conceded that none of the plans had been carried out and that Shnewer often had failed to follow up on discussions, arrange training sessions, or plan strategy meetings.

"All he did was talk," Shnewer's lawyer, Rocco Cipparone Jr., said of his client while questioning Omar.

Shnewer, 24, and his codefendants - Serdar Tatar, 25, and brothers Dritan, 29, Shain, 27, and Eljvir Duka, 25 - have been charged with plotting to kill military personnel by launching an attack on Fort Dix. All but Shnewer also face weapons charges.

In addition to the tapes, the evidence presented to the jury has included a map of Fort Dix provided by Tatar from a pizza shop his father operated adjacent to the base, conversations in which Eljvir Duka discussed obtaining a fatwa (religious approval) for the plan, and videotape of Shain and Dritan Duka buying seven assault rifles from Omar on the night they were arrested.

The defense has argued that the brothers, gun enthusiasts, wanted the weapons for "target shooting," not for an assault on a military base.

The trial, before Judge Robert Kugler, is expected to last about four more weeks. Court will be in session for only two days next week: Tuesday and a half-day Wednesday.

A second key government informant, Besnik Bakalli, is expected to begin testifying sometime after the Thanksgiving recess. Bakalli, an ethnic Albanian like the Duka brothers, also recorded conversations for the FBI.

Defense attorneys challenged the credibility and motivation of Omar by pointing out that he was a convicted felon facing deportation and had been paid about $240,000 by the FBI for his undercover work.

They are expected to raise similar questions about Bakalli.

Little has been made public about the former Northeast Philadelphia resident, but the prosecution has conceded that he was facing possible deportation when he agreed to cooperate and that, in exchange for his help, the government promised to assist him and his family in their attempt to remain in the United States.