A Pakistani immigrant was has been convicted of plotting to blow up a busy New York subway station in retaliation for prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, it was reported today. The jury in Brooklyn, New York spent two days deliberating on the fate of Shahawar Matin Siraj. He faces up to life in prison on charges including conspiracy, but his defense team had argued that Siraj was the victim of entrapment, and had been brainwashed by a paid police informant. Siraj and another man suspected in the plot, James Elshafay, were arrested carrying diagrams of their target – the subway station in Herald Square, New York. Elshafay immediately agreed to cooperate with the government. Authorities said Siraj had no affiliation with known terrorist organizations but had caught the attention of an informant, Osama Eldawoody, and an undercover police officer who heard him strongly criticizing America. The undercover officer and Eldawoody, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Egypt, both testified for the government. Eldawoody had been assigned by the New York Police Department to identify and monitor Islamic extremists in New York's Muslim neighborhoods. The undercover officer, who testified anonymously, said Siraj had “complimented” Osama Bin Laden and praised the September 11, 2001 attacks. “He said he was a talented brother and a great planner and that he hoped bin Laden planned something big for America,” the officer said. Eldawoody talked to Siraj while wearing a recording device, and discussed with him rumors about the abuse of Iraqi girls by U.S. soldiers. “That was enough for me,” Siraj was heard saying in one of the secretly recorded conversations played for the jury. “I'm ready to do anything. I don't care about my life.” Eldawoody convinced Siraj that he would have support from a fictitious organization called The Brotherhood if he decided to carry out an attack, and the jury heard tape of Siraj considering a variety of targets. But Siraj told the jury that he had never considered violence before meeting Eldawoody, saying the older man became a mentor and instructed him that there was a fatwa, or religious edict, permitting the killing of U.S. soldiers and law enforcement agents.
