Prosecutor tells Detroit jury men on trial also wanted to hit Disney, nation’s airports. The government opened its case Wednesday against four men accused of providing support to terrorists by saying they had considered attacks on Las Vegas, Disneyland and American airports. “This case is about deception, dedication and destruction,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard G. Convertino told a jury of 12 women and four men at U.S. District Court in Detroit. “This is not a case of young Arab men coming to the United States to live the American dream. This is not about being in the wrong place at the wrong time.” The government accuses Karim Koubriti, 24, Ahmed Hannan, 34, Farouk Ali-Haimoud, 22, and Abdel-Ilah Elmardoudi, 37, of planning specific violent attacks, including at an American air base in Turkey, to damage the U.S. economy as a sleeper operational combat cell. Koubriti, Hannan and Ali-Haimoud were arrested Sept. 17, 2001, when federal agents raided their apartment in southwest Detroit. Agents using a classified database were looking for Nabil Almarabh, who was high on the FBI’s terror watch list. They found false IDs and a day planner that had references to an American air base in Turkey and a drawing of an airport flight line. Full Story
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