NYPD catches man accused of sowing terror
NEW YORK — The New York Police Department’s target was 1,500 miles away and across the sea.
Abdullah el-Faisal, the man investigators wanted, had an international history as a promoter of extremism. He had been imprisoned in Britain for inciting hatred and soliciting murder before being sent home to Jamaica, where he established himself with a website and lectures. He had caught the attention of the department’s Intelligence Bureau after promoting jihad and encouraging the murder of Jews, Hindus and Americans.
None of the crimes New York prosecutors say he committed — which include spreading Islamic State propaganda and helping a woman who said she wanted to marry one of the group’s fighters — occurred while Faisal was anywhere near the city. But in a Manhattan courtroom, Faisal, 59, has become the first person to go to trial under state laws adopted days after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001 that made it a felony to give terrorists financial or other material support before an attack.
To make their case, New York investigators took on fake identities, chatted with Faisal via WhatsApp messages and Skype and even traveled to the Middle East. They established jurisdiction merely by communicating with Faisal from Manhattan.
Cyrus Vance Jr., who was the Manhattan district attorney when Faisal was indicted, said the far-flung investigation kept the city safe.
“Our defensive perimeter isn’t just the East River and the Hudson River,” Vance said. “This is someone who was inciting jihad who had the possibility of affecting the streets of Manhattan.”
But Faisal’s lawyers portrayed him as a big talker whose actions did not match his violent rhetoric and who was swept up in a plan advanced by determined investigators. Detectives posed as militants and flattered Faisal, calling him “very smart” and referring to the United States as the “land of war” to win his trust.
“What the evidence will not show is that Faisal committed an actual act of terrorism,” said Alex Grosshtern, one of his lawyers, during opening statements.
Police officials did not respond to a request to discuss Faisal’s case, but the trial, which began in late November in state Supreme Court, reflects the priorities and ambitions of the agency and the district attorney’s office: They have seen Manhattan as a magnet for terrorists and, in initiatives all but unrivaled outside the federal government, assembled special teams to investigate and prosecute extremists.
Federal prosecutors have often been reluctant to take on terrorism cases based on evidence gathered by local police without the involvement of federal agencies or Joint Terrorism Task Forces, which were established to coordinate efforts, said Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent who supervised international terrorism cases.
He said federal prosecutors may not have believed the Faisal investigation met their rigorous thresholds. (When Faisal was arrested, former and current law enforcement officials suggested that his helpful ties to a foreign government had made federal prosecutors hesitant to build a case against him.)
Current district attorney, Alvin Bragg, said in a statement that his office is well prepared, maintaining a counterterrorism program “staffed with talented attorneys and analysts who have deep expertise prosecuting complex cases that span borders.”
“New Yorkers know the horrors of terrorism, and Manhattan remains a unique target for both global and domestic terror plots,” he said.
Eugene O’Donnell, a former police officer and prosecutor who teaches at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said the New York Police Department, the nation’s largest, is positioned to handle such investigations effectively, in part because it has a large, ethnically diverse and “street savvy” pool of employees.
Testimony and records of email and text exchanges introduced into evidence provide an unusual glimpse into an Intelligence Bureau investigation that lasted nearly a year, during which city detectives inhabited fictional personas, adopted the language of terror and traveled to the Mideast.