Miami Jury Hears Patsy Oaths Led by FBI Informant

CURT ANDERSON
Associated Press
October 11, 2007

MIAMI (AP) — A videotaped pledge of allegiance to al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden by seven men accused of plotting terror attacks on U.S. soil was played Thursday for jurors, who saw each man repeat the oath, give his name and then break into applause.

The oath was led by an FBI informant, Elie Assad, who was posing as an al-Qaida operative named Mohammed supposedly sent to help the group with its purported plot to destroy Chicago’s Sears Tower and bomb FBI buildings in several cities to spark an insurrection.

“We’ll be doing, in the future, a great job together,” Assad tells the men after administering the oath at a warehouse in Miami’s impoverished Liberty City neighborhood. The warehouse had been supplied by the FBI and was wired for video and audio recording.

“I’m just happy,” says the alleged ringleader, Narseal Batiste, after the ceremony.

Among the oath’s words repeated by all the so-called “Liberty City Seven” are “to be a loyalist to the path of holy war and to my brothers.” Assad told the group at the outset he was authorized to give the oath as a representative of bin Laden.

The ceremony took place March 16, 2006, and is critical to the prosecution’s charges that the group conspired to provide support to al-Qaida and to levy war against the United States. Each of the seven faces up to 70 years in prison if convicted of all charges.

Earlier Thursday, Assad testified that Batiste provided a detailed list of gear the group wanted, including machine guns, bulletproof vests, sport utility vehicles, motorcycles and $50,000 in cash. He said Batiste sought dynamite to destroy the 110-story Sears Tower.

“He told me he was a professional, and he knows how to build buildings, and he knows how to take them down,” Assad testified.

Attorneys for Batiste and the others have said they never intended to mount a terrorist attack and that they went along with the FBI informants only to attempt to extort money from them. Their trial is expected to last up to two more months.

Assad’s testimony marked the first public appearance by the key prosecution witness. Assad described himself as a Lebanese national of Syrian descent who speaks six languages. He said he was enlisted by the FBI to act as an al-Qaida emissary after agents were tipped in fall 2005 that Batiste was allegedly plotting a terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

Assad testified that Batiste gave him a handwritten, three-page list of requested supplies at a meeting Dec. 29, 2005, including the weaponry, $50,000 in cash, binoculars, dirt bikes, street motorcycles, SUVs and two large recreational vehicles capable of holding his entire group.

Batiste also told Assad he had access to private land in Louisiana and Alabama, where he hoped to use these supplies to train his “soldiers” there so they could mount a guerrilla war to be triggered by the toppling of the Sears Tower.

“I’m really serious about everything I told you,” Batiste said in one recorded conversation. “There’s only one government - and that’s the government of Islam.”

Assad said he gave the list to the FBI and ultimately supplied only military-style boots and a cell phone to Batiste. “It’s not safe to give him machine guns,” Assad said.

Prosecutors also played a recording of a Jan. 28, 2006, meeting of Assad, the other informant and Batiste in the Florida Keys. The two informants had been unexpectedly driven there from Miami amid increasing suspicions among Batiste’s group that they might be working for the FBI, prosecutors said.

During the meeting, held in a tent in the town of Islamorada, Batiste notes that the Bush administration has become increasingly concerned about homegrown terrorist cells and that “it would have been easy” for Assad to have recorded their previous talks - which, in fact, he did.

“You’ve got to understand, in this country right now, right now, there are spies everywhere,” Batiste said on the recording.

Assad assured Batiste that he was a legitimate al-Qaida representative and the two informants were driven back to Miami unharmed.