Missile Plot Sting Convictions

A federal jury on Tuesday convicted two Muslim immigrants of participating in a plot with a man who said he was helping plan a missile attack on a Pakistani diplomat in New York City in 2004.

The man to whom the immigrants were linked was actually an informant working with the F.B.I. in a sting operation against the two defendants, Yassin M. Aref, 36, an Iraqi refugee and the imam at an Albany mosque, and Mohammed M. Hossain, 51, a Bangladeshi immigrant and the owner of a pizzeria here. The gestation of the case, with the government’s informant ingratiating himself with the men and initiating all the conversations about a shoulder-fired rocket launcher, led to claims of entrapment from Mr. Hossain’s lawyers during the three-week trial in Federal District Court.

“Obviously we had a couple of individuals that were prone to supporting terrorism,” United States Attorney Glenn T. Suddaby said after the verdict.

They had previously tried to latch onto the NSA wiretap story to allege that their rights were infringed. The duo had been arrested in Albany, New York in 2004 near my old stomping grounds.

Prior coverage: A Terror Plot Grows in Albany.

UPDATE:
The two face up to 25 years in prison. The jury found Aref guilty of 10 counts and Hossain guilty of 27 counts:

Yassin M. Aref, 36
Guilty on 10 counts, including -- money laundering --, providing material support and resources to a foreign terrorist organization --lying to FBI agents about whether he knew Mullah Krekar, the founder of an Iraqi-based terrorist organization.

--Acquitted on 20 counts, including lying to the FBI about his ties to an Iraqi political party. ------Faces up to 25 years in prison.

Mohammed M. Hossain, 51
Guilty on 27 counts, including --money laundering, --providing material support and resources to a foreign terrorist organization --attempting to provide material support to Jaish-e-Mohammad, a Pakistani terrorist organization. ----- Faces up to 25 years in prison.

The convicts plan to appeal.

Here's a timeline of the events leading to the conviction.

Mike Pechar at Jawa Report has more.