Second Suspect in Bergen County Synagogue Attacks Plotted To Murder Local Officials

A second suspect in a string of anti Semitic attacks across Bergen County, Aakash Dalal, has been charged in relation to a plot to kill local officials, including the Bergen County prosecutor in the original case.

A man accused of trying to firebomb New Jersey synagogues is expected to be in court Friday to face new charges that he allegedly plotted to kill an assistant Bergen County prosecutor working on the case.

Aakash Dalal, 20, is charged with conspiring to kill Assistant Prosecutor Martin Delaney.

Since May, the FBI has been investigating Dalal after learning that he wanted to get a gun and kill Delaney once he was released from jail, officials said.

On Wednesday, investigators executed a search warrant on Dalal’s cell and found evidence of the plot, prosecutors said. They also found a list of “enemies” the suspect kept that included Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli, according to authorities.

Dalal was due to be released from the Bergen County Jail this week after posting $1 million bail.

Dalal was charged in a attacks along with Anthony Graziano including an attack on a Rutherford congregation and its rabbi, who lived in the building. Prosecutors consider Dalal to be the teacher, with Graziano in the role of student.

The judge increased the bail on Dalal to $3 million from $1 million in light of the new charges. That's after an appellate court had reduced the bail from $2.5 million, believing that the original bail amount was excessive.

Prosecutors have said Dalal encouraged and advised Graziano, who is accused of firebombing a Rutherford synagogue and setting fire to a Paramus synagogue in January. Dalal and Graziano also have been accused of spray-painting anti-Semitic graffiti at synagogues in Hackensack and Maywood in December.

The most serious attack came on Jan. 11, when Graziano allegedly hurled several Molotov cocktails into the living quarters of a Rutherford synagogue where a rabbi, his wife and five children were sleeping. The rabbi suffered burns on his hand, but no one else was injured.

Neturei Karta Behind Anti-Semitic Vandalism At Yad Vashem

Israeli authorities have arrested four people in connection with anti-Semitic graffiti scrawled at Yad Vashem and other locations around Israel. The four people arrested are members of Neturei Karta, which refuses to recognize the state of Israel and often sides with the likes of Ahmadinejad and other anti-Israel types worldwide.

Four suspects from Jerusalem, Bnei Brak and Ashdod are under arrest on suspicion of spray-painting hate slogans on the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum, Ammunition Hill and other landmark monuments over the last couple months, police announced Tuesday morning.

The arrests were carried out by the elite central unit of the Judea and Samaria district. Police searched the homes of suspects and seized large amounts of texts condemning Zionism, Israel, and PLO flags, as well as paint. Texts suspected to be incitement to hatred were also found on computers.

The suspects confessed to spray painting the graffiti at Yad Vashem, which shocked the country and deeply upset Holocaust survivors. They also confessed to spray painting graffiti at Ammunition Hill on Remembrance Day as well as vandalizing memorials throughout the Jordan Valley.

Breivik Wants Death Penalty or Acquittal

Anders Breivik wont get his wish for the death penalty or acquital, despite the fact that his claims that he was acting in self defense simply don't pass the smell test.

Norweigan law permits only a maximum of 21 years in prison.

The right-wing fanatic said he doesn't fear death and that militant nationalists in Europe have a lot to learn from al-Qaida, including their methods and glorification of martyrdom.

"If I had feared death I would not have dared to carry out this operation," he said, referring to his July 22 attacks — a bombing in downtown Oslo that killed eight people and a shooting massacre at a youth camp outside the Norwegian capital that killed 69.

Breivik's comments, on the third day of his terror trial, came as he was pressed to give details on the anti-Muslim militant group he claims to belong to but which prosecutors say doesn't exist as he describes. Several unrelated groups claim part of that "Knights Templar" name.

The 33-year-old Norwegian acknowledged that his supposed crusader network is "not an organization in a conventional sense" but insisted that it is for real.

"It is not in my interest to shed light on details that could lead to arrests," he said refusing to comment on the group's alleged other members.

The issue is of key importance in determining Breivik's sanity, and whether he's sent to prison or compulsory psychiatric care for the bomb-and-shooting massacre that shocked Norway.

If found sane, Breivik could face a maximum 21-year prison sentence or an alternate custody arrangement that would keep him locked up as long as he is considered a menace to society. If declared insane he would be committed to psychiatric care for as long as he's considered ill.
"I view 21 years in prison as a pathetic sentence," Breivik said.

Breivik doesn't consider the courts to be legal; he has previously ridiculed the jurisdiction of the court to hear the case, but his claims focus mostly on the fact that he was fighting the first chapter of a larger conflict to preserve the white heritage of Norway and Europe against the rising tide of Muslims and outsiders.

Part of the problem in determining his sanity and his political claims is that he's refusing to give any information that might reveal the identities of the Knights Templar and other like-minded individuals with whom he's had contact and might confirm his claims that he's part of a wider right-wing white nationalist group intent on fighting against multiculturalism and igniting a race war in the process. Thus far, police have been unable to corroborate his claims of other cells in Europe or Norway.

It's also interesting that he considers al Qaeda to be methodological role models, even though Breivik claims that his goals are isolationist in nature.

Breivik Admits Murdering 77, Claims Self Defense As Lay Judge Is Replaced

The trial of Anders Breivik continues, and while a lay judge was replaced with an alternate, the focus should be on Breivik's strategy of claiming that he murdered 77 people in self-defense.

He claimed to be speaking as a commander of a Norwegian and European "anti-communist" resistance movement and an anti-Islam militant group he called the Knights Templar. Prosecutors have said the group does not exist.

Maintaining he acted out of "goodness not evil" to prevent a wider civil war, Breivik insisted, "I would have done it again."

The statement came after a citizen judge was dismissed Tuesday for his comments online the day following the July 22 attack that Breivik deserves the death penalty. Lawyers on all sides had requested that lay judge Thomas Indreboe be taken off the trial.

Breivik is being tried by a panel of two professional judges and three lay judges, local politicians who are appointed for four-year terms and participate on an equal basis as the judges in deciding guilt and sentencing. The system is designed to let ordinary people have a role in the Norwegian justice system, though the lead judge still runs the trial. Indreboe was replaced by backup lay judge Elisabeth Wisloeff.

This is a strategy that is destined to fail, particularly since none of children Breivik murdered actually engaged in acts that could ever be construed to be acts from which one would ever need to use violence to prevent harm to oneself.

The 69 people Breivik murdered at the youth camp at Utoya Island were not taking up arms or preparing for a war - that was Breivik. Breivik was acting in furtherance of his beliefs that he was the vanguard for a war against non-Norwegians; he was an Islamophobe and xenophobe. He hated those who weren't like himself, and vowed to take up arms in furtherance of his cause.

Now, he wraps himself in the belief that his actions were self-defense, which he's using in the most perverted of manners.

UPDATE:
Ausador at LGF provides a glimpse into the worldview and thinking of Breivik and why he could possibly think that he was engaging in acts of self-defense when carrying out mass murder. The presumption is that if you believe in the supremacy of "white" "culture", and see it beset upon all sides and nonwhites horning in on the culture and society of whites, then acts to protect the white culture is justified.

That's the general line of thinking, and it's an ideology shared by white nationalists in the US and across Europe, and it is a hate-filled ideology that justifies the use of violence to cleanse the world of non-white influences, ideology, and enforce the supremacy of whites.

Breivik's acts are a logical extension of this hate-fueled ideology.

Norwegian Right Wing Massacre Suspect Claims Self Defense

Anders Breivik made an appearance in an Oslo courtroom and was not only defiant about his course of action, but actually claimed that his murder of 77 people, including 69 people who were shot and killed on Utoya Island at a youth camp operated by a liberal political party, was self-defense.

Breivik further claimed that the court had no jurisdiction to hear the case because it is comprised and derives authority from the same government he claims has no power and is subverting Norway through its multicultural policies.

In remarkable evidence played to a packed and shocked courtroom, recordings of cellphone calls made by the gunman to the police suggested that he tried twice to give himself up and simply went on killing in the absence of officers to accept his surrender. In the period after the first call to his final shot being fired, prosecutors said, 41 people died.

Anders Behring Breivik, 33, has admitted on several occasions that he carried out the rampage on July 22, in which 69 people were shot and killed on Utoya Island, near Oslo, where the youth wing of the governing Labor Party was holding a summer camp. Hours earlier, a car bombing in central Oslo killed eight people.

As the grisly evidence unfolded, and some of the bereaved families and survivors in the courtroom sobbed inconsolably, Mr. Breivik remained mostly impassive, and at one point seemed to a reporter watching him to stifle a yawn. Only as the court viewed a video that Mr. Breivik had made before the attacks to publicize his cause, did he break down in tears, dabbing at his face.

Asked by a judge on Monday whether he wished to plead guilty, Mr. Breivik said, “I acknowledge the acts, but I don’t plead guilty as I claim I was doing it in self-defense.” He had previously denied criminal responsibility on the ground that he was protecting Norway against Islamic immigration.

Mr. Breivik showed no emotion on Monday as the prosecutor Inga Bejer Engh solemnly and painstakingly intoned the names of the dead. “I do not recognize the Norwegian courts,” Mr. Breivik said at another point in the hearing. “You have received your mandate from political parties which support multiculturalism. I do not acknowledge the authority of the court.”

Hundreds of reporters and video crews have flooded into Oslo to cover Mr. Breivik’s hearings, which are evoking both drama and outrage as Norway relives the horror last summer that shattered its self-image as a well-ordered place of relative tranquillity and tolerance.

The bloody intrusion of urban terrorism into ordinary lives was rekindled in dozens of images of wreckage and explosions recorded by security cameras at the time of the Oslo bombing — before the killings on Utoya — and shown to the court on Monday, prompting survivors, bereaved families and journalists to gasp in shock, some of them covering their mouths with their hands.

Then, in perhaps the most wrenching moment of the first day’s hearing, the court heard a two-minute recording of the voice of an unidentified girl hiding in a toilet on the island. “He’s coming. He’s coming. Please...”

Then there was only the sound of shots being fired.

Let's not forget that Breivik believes that he was firing the first shots in a race war and he was defending white people from the others. It's racist and violent xenophobia at its most stark and naked core.

Within the past several weeks, several psychiatrists have examined him, and while two early examinations found him insane, a more recent examination found him competent to stand trial. His views are extreme, but that doesn't make him insane. He clearly seems to know right from wrong, which is something that goes to the core of whether someone can have criminal intent, particularly intent to kill.

Here, Breivik was knowingly and purposefully killing his victims because he believed that he was fighting against the Islamization-multicultural overtaking of Norway and its heritage. He understood that he was doing wrong, but did it anyways. He's providing justifications for his acts, but they are empty gestures by a hate-filled individual who shows no remorse for his actions. He clearly didn't have a problem with slaughtering dozens upon dozens of children to further his own agenda.

Suspect In North Jersey Synagogue Attacks Plotted Firebombing Additional Congregations

One of two suspects in a rash of attacks on synagogues around Northern New Jersey was planning another attack, against the Paramus Jewish Community Center. Having attended that congregation during the high Holy Days (Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashana) a few years back this hits home even more than most:

Synagogue firebombing suspect Anthony Graziano was planning another attack — on the Jewish Community Center of Paramus — and was stockpiling beer bottles and gasoline in woods nears the center, Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli said Friday.

The discovery prompted new charges of attempted aggravated arson, bias intimidation, possession of a destructive device, he said. A court appearance on those charges is scheduled for Tuesday morning at Superior Court in Hackensack.

Molinelli said investigators had seized Graziano’s two computers, which showed that the suspect had searched for information about how to make Molotov cocktails and how to burn down buildings. He added that Graziano had tried to delete the information in a way that made it difficult to retrieve, but that investigators had succeeded in reconstructing it.

Graziano, 19, was arrested Monday night and charged with trying to start a fire with gasoline at the Congregation K’hal Adath Jeshurun in Paramus on Jan. 3. The fire went out quickly, and no one was injured, authorities said.

Authorities also accused him of throwing Molotov cocktails into the residential quarters of the Congregation Beth El synagogue in Rutherford on Jan. 11. Rabbi Nosson Schuman, who was sleeping at the time, said he escaped with his wife and five children.

Meanwhile, the list of congregations that received an anti Semitic pamphlet in the mail has grown to include the Fair Lawn Jewish Center, which isn't too far from our home.

Suspect In Rutherford New Jersey Synagogue Firebombings Due In Court Today

Anthony Graziano, the suspect in two firebombings, including one at a Rutherford congregation that contained the rabbi's residence, is scheduled to make an initial appearance morning in Hackensack.

Graziano is being held on $5 million bail after being charged with a host of crimes including nine attempted murder, arson and bias intimidation. He faces up to 80 years in prison if he convicted.

According to the Bergen County prosecutor, Graziano apparently chose the congregations in Rutherford and Paramus synagogues because they were close enough to his mother's house that he could reach them on his bicycle. There's no word on a particular motive in Graziano's actions.

While this arrest closes the book on those two attacks, there are several other unsolved hate crimes against Jewish congregations across Northern New Jersey.

Prosecutors Release Video Of Man Wanted In Connection With Bergen County Shul Firebombing Attack

Prosecutors have released a video of a man wanted in connection to the January 11 firebombing of a Rutherford synagogue.

The video, from Jan. 9 surveillance footage, shows a fair-skinned man apparently between 18 and 30 years old, leaving what appears to be a Wal-Mart store with a camouflage backpack and a plastic shopping bag.

The man, who is about 5’10’’ to 6’1’’, has a thin to medium build and is wearing a red and black warm-up suit and a red skull cap. The man was also seen riding a bicycle, according to a press release.

Law enforcement officials are asking anyone with information that could lead to identification of the man to call a hotline at 201-226-5532, email tips@bcpo.net or send a text message to 551-265-5651.

It might have been helpful to know the time the man was spotted in the Walmart as well as the location of the store. Neither was provided in the Record's story. The location of the store would be key to helping jog the memory of someone who might have seen the individual since there are several locations throughout Northern New Jersey.

UPDATE:
Prosecutors have also revealed that several Jewish congregations received anti Semitic letters through the mail.

He said the letters had first-class mail stamps on them and New York City return addresses belonging to two Jewish activists.

In Hackensack, the sender created an 8-by-10-inch collage of photos of Bernie Madoff and the chairmen of Citibank, Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers along with two other apparent Wall Street leaders. A Beth El temple employee noticed the synagogue received the letter just after 8 a.m. Friday, said Detective Capt. Thomas Salcedo.

On the sheet of paper, Madoff’s photo was doctored to make him look like a devil, and the words “Wall St. Jews” were superimposed over the other men’s images, which were copies of magazine covers that had been shrunken to fit the page, Salcedo said.

The synagogue called police without opening it because leaders thought it was suspicious. The sheriff’s office is analyzing the letter and the business envelope it arrived in for evidence, Salcedo said.

In Maywood, Temple Beth Israel received a similar letter Thursday afternoon. The letter had about nine magazine covers shrunken to fit the page. The magazine covers depicted Jewish men in a negative manner, said Detective Mark Gillies.

And then, there's reports that someone established a WiFi account at a community center in Teaneck, New Jersey that was both racist and anti Semitic.

A bigot named their WiFi signal “F--- All Jews and N----” — and now cops are investigating.

The hateful signal I.D. popped up on the iPhone of a 28-year-old mom inside a Teaneck, N.J. recreation center, where her 3-year-old daughter was attending dance class.

The offending signal was coming from a router connected in the Richard Rodda Community Center in the the township, located 10 miles outside New York City.

More Anti-Semitic Incidents In Brooklyn Have Communities on Edge

Today two separate incidents of anti Semitic graffiti was found in Brooklyn. In addition to graffiti found in Midwood, where there have been several other incidents, including a possible insurance scam that used anti Semitic slurs to cover up torching several vehicles, several swastikas were found in Floyd Bennett Field, which is part of Gateway National Recreation Area (and would make that particular incident a federal crime).

Separately, one man is under arrest after making threatening phone calls to several women in Brooklyn using anti Semitic slurs.

Police arrested David Haddad, 56, a Chelsea building manager for leaving threatening messages on the answering machines of older women in Chelsea and in South Brooklyn.

But it was unclear Monday night whether Haddad is tied to the half dozen swastikas and a “Die Jew” that appeared on two homes, an apartment building, and a school near the intersection of Avenue L and E. 5th Street.

“This first arrest is an empowering development,” said City Councilman David Greenfield (D- Midwood). But “it seems this is happening all over the city. All at the same time. It seems this individual is responsible for a section of it.”

Cops said Haddad - who knows some of his victims - is considered a suspect for the weekend swastika spree.

But Midwood victims said they never heard of Haddad.

“I don’t know the name,” said Steven Miltz, whose E. 5th Street white garage door had “Die Jew” and three swastikas spray painted on.

These incidents are on the heels of a spate of attacks in Northern New Jersey, including one attack that is classified as an attempted murder when a firebomb was thrown at a shul/home of a rabbi. New Jersey investigators have some leads on those attacks, but so far no arrests have been made.

Bias Attack Bottle Bomber Caught On Video; Additional Long Island Incidents Identified

In the span of a couple of hours, four Muslim and Asian businesses, mosques, or temples across Queens were firebombed by a man who used Starbucks drink bottles. A fifth location on Long Island may also have been attacked by the same individual:

A fifth building — a Long Island home — has been hit by a Molotov cocktail, and cops are investigating if the attack is linked to four similar incidents in Queens, authorities said Monday.

The harrowing Queens arsons, including one at a mosque, took place within a mile of each other in Jamaica between 8 p.m. and 10:15 p.m. Sunday.

At 9:40 p.m. Sunday, a Molotov cocktail was thrown at a Glafil St. home in Elmont. Nassau County police said there were no injuries or damage to the home.

Bejai Rai, 77, was having dinner with his wife and two sons when they heard glass smash and saw fire sparks.

“My son thought the chandelier had fallen,” Rai said. “We saw that a bottle, like a coffee glass bottle, hit our front window then landed in the concrete.” It was similar to the ones cops described as Starbucks bottles found at the mosque scene and at a bodega that was attacked.

“It sparked, but didn’t catch a fire,” he said. “We were lucky.”

They saw a two-door silver Honda Accord lingering.

Video at one of the locations caught the man throwing the bottle bomb at the location:


One of the locations was a convenience store, and a disgruntled customer may have decided to take revenge on that location and the others:

A worker at the deli said the man showed up at the store about three nights ago, tried to shoplift and threatened employees when they caught him in the act and ejected him. Police said the suspect had tried to steal milk and a Starbucks Frappuccino and appeared to be of Guyanese descent.