MIAMI - In a stinging defeat for the Bush administration, one of seven Miami men accused of plotting to join forces with al-Qaida to blow up Chicago's Sears Tower was acquitted Thursday, and the case against the rest ended in a hung jury.
Federal prosecutor Richard Gregorie said the government planned to retry the six next year, and the judge said a new jury would be picked starting Jan. 7.
The White House had seized on the case to illustrate the dangers of homegrown terrorism and trumpet the government's post-Sept. 11 success in infiltrating and smashing terrorism plots in their earliest stages.
Lyglenson Lemorin, 32, had been accused of being a "soldier" for alleged ringleader Narseal Batiste. He buried his face in his hands when his acquittal was read.
Lemorin, a legal U.S. resident originally from Haiti, was subject to an immigration hold and would not be immediately released, his lawyer said.
The jury gave up on the other defendants after nine days of deliberations on four terrorism-related conspiracy charges that carry a combined maximum of 70 years in prison. The jury twice sent notes to the judge indicating they could not reach verdicts but were told to keep trying.
U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard declared a mistrial after their third note, which she quoted as saying: "We believe no further progress can be made."
Prosecutors said the "Liberty City Seven" — so-named because they operated out of a warehouse in Miami's blighted Liberty City section — swore allegiance to al-Qaida and hoped to forge an alliance to carry out bombings against America's tallest skyscraper, the FBI's Miami office and other federal buildings.
The group never actually made contact with al-Qaida. Instead, a paid FBI informant known as Brother Mohammed posed as an al-Qaida emissary.
The defense portrayed the seven men as hapless figures who were either manipulated and entrapped by the FBI or went along with the plot to con "Mohammed" out of $50,000.
The group never actually made contact with al-Qaida and never acquired any weapons or explosives. Prosecutors said no attack was imminent, acknowledging that the alleged terror cell was "more aspirational than operational."
But then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said after the arrests in mid-2006 that the group was emblematic of the "smaller, more loosely defined cells who are not affiliated with al-Qaida, but who are inspired by a violent jihadist message."
And U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta of Miami said: "Our mission is to disrupt these cells if possible before they acquire the capability to implement their plans."
Hopefully the Prosecution will learn what did not work well in the first trial and will present a more effective case to the jury the second time. Cases like these must be prosecuted to their fullest extent and home grown jihadis must not be allowed to get away with planing terrorists acts against this Country.
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