At Dix trial, father stands by sons and country

It's the American dream turned nightmare.

Ferik Duka said last week that he had brought his family to the United States nearly 25 years ago for a better life.

Once, he thought he had found it.

Now, he and his wife, Zurata, sit in a federal courtroom in Camden each day watching and listening as their three oldest children, sons Dritan, 29, Shain, 27, and Eljvir, 25, stand trial on allegations that they plotted a jihad-inspired attack on Fort Dix.

The charges, Ferik Duka said, are ridiculous; his sons are not guilty.

"I'm confident in the American justice system," he said. "My sons are innocent."

So he sits in the fourth-floor courtroom, dressed in a sports coat over either a shirt and tie or a turtleneck, his thick arms folded in front of him, watching the system work.

His wife, wearing a head scarf, is always by his side. Occasionally other family members - a son and daughter born in the United States, a daughter-in-law, grandchildren - attend the sessions.

When the defendants enter the courtroom, the relatives smile and nod. When court ends promptly at 4:30 p.m. each day, they wait for the jury to exit, then exchange nods, smiles and waves again as the Duka brothers and their codefendants, Mohamad Shnewer and Serdar Tatar, are led away by U.S. marshals.

All five have been held without bail since their arrests in May 2007. All five are foreign-born Muslims who were raised in the Cherry Hill area. Eljvir Duka is married to one of Shnewer's sisters.

All face life in prison if convicted.

Ferik Duka, 61, shook his head at that prospect and then talked about better times.

Standing on the steps of the federal courthouse on Market Street one morning during a break in the trial, the burly roofing contractor lit a cigarette and told the story of his coming to America.

"I came . . . because we heard a lot of good things," he said. "Freedom of speech, democracy, opportunity. And it was true. I chose America because of those things."

It was 1984.

He had left Yugoslavia, where, he said, there was little work and less opportunity, especially for ethnic Albanians like himself.

To this day their immigration status remains murky. The government has labeled them illegal immigrants. But Ferik Duka said he had a lawyer and had been trying for years to straighten out his status.

"I came in illegally, but since 1985 I have been applying" for legal status, he said. "I work. I pay taxes."

Duka operates a roofing and construction business out of his home on Mimosa Drive. His three oldest sons worked with him.

They are religious, he said, but not fanatical.

"For Muslims, it is not easy to live in the United States," he said. "But still, it is better than in Muslim countries. We are not extremists, not terrorists."

They are, he said with no little pride, "Albanians."

"We do not have a history of terrorism," he said. "We fight man to man."

And, he said, all Albanians are grateful to the United States for coming to their aid in the war with Serbia and for ending the ethnic cleansing that cost tens of thousands of Muslim lives.

It was against that backdrop that Duka offered his assessment of the case against his sons.

The charges, he said, are built around the lies of two FBI informants, Mahmoud Omar and Besnik Bakalli.

Ferik Duka met both men, befriended them, invited them to his home for dinner.

Omar pretended to be a friend, Duka said. He got close to Shnewer and, through him, the Duka brothers. And for most of that time, he was wired for sound.

"He's a liar and a hypocrite," Ferik Duka said of the government's star witness.

Omar, a convicted felon with a history of passing bad checks, spent 13 days on the stand, his testimony finally ending Thursday.

Among other things, the jury learned that the FBI had paid the 39-year-old Egyptian national nearly $240,000 for his work in the investigation, and that he hoped to avoid deportation as a result of his cooperation.

"I feed him like my sons," Duka said. "I try to encourage him to just continue working and stay away from trouble."

Omar's secretly taped conversations - more than 200 - are central to the government's case.

Most were discussions with Shnewer. The talk is alternately disturbing, frightening and outlandish.

Shnewer spoke incessantly and with admiration for jihad, Osama bin Laden, and the "brothers who changed the world" by carrying out the 9/11 attacks.

The jury has seen and heard it all.

Omar "found a soft spot talking to Shnewer," Ferik Duka said. Shnewer is "a child. He doesn't mean what he says."

That, in fact, has been one of the defense's themes in the now month-old trial.

Shnewer, the defense has argued, talked a game he never intended to play.

Eljvir Duka may have said it even better in a conversation Omar secretly recorded.

"A barking dog never bites," he said.

Ferik Duka said his sons never had any intention of attacking a military base. And, again echoing a defense argument, he said Shain and Dritan had bought seven assault rifles from Omar not because they planned to launch an assault on Fort Dix but because they liked to target-shoot.

The trial is expected to last about four more weeks.

Ferik Duka will be there each day.

Bakalli, the other government informant, will probably take the stand after the Thanksgiving break.

Like the Dukas, he is an ethnic Albanian. And like the Dukas, his immigration status is questionable.

Among other things, the government has said Bakalli, who lived in Northeast Philadelphia, agreed to cooperate in exchange for assistance in his fight against possible deportation.

Ferik Duka offered another ironic smile.

"I invite him to my house," he said of Bakalli. "We are hospitable people, accepting, trusting."

Bakalli, like Omar, has made a deal to help himself, regardless of who is hurt, Duka said.

"It's hard," he said. "I talk to my sons. They say, 'Dad, don't worry. God knows and we know that we are innocent. Whatever they do is up to them.' "

Even if they should beat the most serious charge of conspiring to kill U.S. military personnel, the Duka brothers appear certain to be convicted of weapons offenses.

At the very least, that would likely result in their deportation.

"They came here as children," Ferik Duka said. "I'm the one who brings them here. When you are 5 years old, 3 years old, you can't tell you father, 'No.'

"I don't think they deserve to be deported. I bring them here."