Fort Dix Terror Suspects Plead Not Guilty

Jun 14, 06:20 PM

Current Headlines: CAMDEN, N.J. _ The six self-styled terrorists accused of plotting to attack Fort Dix soldiers pleaded not guilty in federal court Thursday.

In a courtroom crowded with friends, relatives and reporters, lawyers for the six men entered not guilty pleas before U.S. District Court Judge Robert B. Kugler.

The judge said he wanted trial for the men to begin in early October.

Five of the six were charged with planning to kill U.S. military personnel, an offense that carries a potential life sentence. The sixth defendant was charged with a weapons offense that carries a maximum 10-year term.

All six have been held without bail since being arrested on May 7.

The arrests last month capped a 16-month investigation by the FBI and the South Jersey Joint Terrorism Task Force.

The case includes dozens of secretly recorded conversations made by two cooperating witnesses who managed to infiltrate the group. The FBI informants allegedly took part in a training session in February with the others that included firearms practice and watching radical Islamic videotapes produced by al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations.

The indictment charges that five of the defendants, Mohamad Shnewer, 22; Serdar Tatar, 23; and brothers Dritan Duka, 28; Shain Duka, 26; and Eljvir Duka, 23, "were inspired by ... al-Qaeda, a foreign terrorist organization" and planned an "armed paramilitary" attack on Fort Dix.

The Duka brothers are Cherry Hill, N.J., residents who came to this country from the former Yugoslavia as children in the 1980s. They are ethnic Albanians, and authorities say they are illegal immigrants.

Shnewer, also of Cherry Hill, is a U.S. citizen who was born in Jordan and came to this county as a child. Tatar, formerly of Cherry Hill but living in Philadelphia at the time of his arrest, is a legal resident alien who was born in Turkey.

The sixth defendant, Agron Abdullahu, 24, of Buena Vista Township, Atlantic County, N.J., was charged with aiding and abetting the Duka brothers in possessing weapons. He came to the United States with his family from Kosovo in the late 1990s as part of a U.S.-sponsored airlift of victims of a genocidal war there.

The FBI launched its investigation into the group based on a tip provided in January 2006 by a clerk at a Circuit City store in Mount Laurel, N.J. The clerk notified police after watching a videotape that two customers had asked him to transfer to DVD. On the tape, the clerk said, he saw scenes of a group of young men firing rifles and shouting jihadist slogans.

The tape was allegedly of a firearms-training session the defendants conducted at a state park firing range in the Poconos.

The indictment alleges the group considered several military installations before settling on Fort Dix as its target. Authorities alleged the defendants conducted surveillance of the base and obtained a map of the facility from Tatar's father's pizza shop next to the base.

The six were arrested on the night Shain and Dritan Duka were to buy seven assault rifles and four handguns from a "black market" gun merchant. The gun deal was, in fact, a sting operation set up by the FBI through one of its cooperating witnesses.

Authorities said the Duka brothers were arrested after paying for the guns _ three AK-47 assault rifles, four M-16 automatic assault rifles, and four handguns _ at a meeting in a Cherry Hill apartment complex. The other four defendants were arrested in coordinated raids conducted at the same time.

The Duka brothers, Tatar and Shnewer were charged in the indictment with conspiracy to murder uniformed members of the U.S. military. The Dukas were also charged with being illegal immigrants in possession of firearms.

Abdullahu, who allegedly provided a pistol, a shotgun and two rifles for the training sessions, was charged with aiding and abetting the Duka brothers' illegal weapons possession.

___

(c) 2007, The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Visit Philadelphia Online, the Inquirer's World Wide Web site, at http://www.philly.com/

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.