Marathon Bombing Case: They Forgave the killer of 9 in Charleston, but not Dzhokhar.

On Wednesday, June 24, 2015, Dzhokhar "Jahar" Tsarnaev finally spoke.

"I would like to begin in the name of Allah, the exalted and glorious, the most gracious, the most merciful, "Allah" among the most beautiful names. Any act that does not begin in the name of God is separate from goodness."

The victims, the jury, nobody was expecting this religious sermon.

"He did crack up and pause a few times, it sounded like he was trying to compose himself," stated a courtroom observer.

Before thanking his attorneys, he invoked the name of Muhammed. He thanked those who testified on his behalf, he thanked the jury for their service, and even the Court.

"The Prophet Muhammed, peace and blessings be upon him, said that if you do not show mercy to Allah's creation, then Allah will not have mercy on you, so I'd like to apologize now to the victims, to the survivors. Now, I am sorry for the lives that I've taken, for the suffering that I've caused you, for the damage that I've done. Irreparable damage."

What he said satisfied neither the victims nor those who continue to believe that he was framed.

"Immediately after the bombing, which I am guilty of - if there's any lingering doubt about that, let there be no more. I did do it, along with my brother."

Those who were hoping he would 'do a Tarek Mehanna' political speech got instead a speech on forgiveness that sounded at once sincere yet highly scripted, but answered nobody's questions like why? or how?

"Now, I am a Muslim. My religion is Islam. The God I worship, besides whom there is no other God, is Allah. And I prayed to Allah to bestow his mercy upon the deceased, those affected in the bombing, and their families. Allah says in the Quran that with every hardship is relief. I pray for your relief, for your healing, for your well-being, for your strength. I ask Allah to have mercy upon me and my brother and my family. I ask Allah to bestow his mercy upon those present here today. And Allah knows best those deserving of His mercy."

This convoluted sort of apology left everyone scratching their heads.

Why would he wait until AFTER he was found guilty and sentenced to death to apologize? And why, how, what the heck - and how is it that he is suddenly speaking with a thick Arabian accent? Not a Russian accent. He sounded Middle Eastern, two different observers told New Trend. It really was him, they said, but strangely out of character. He used to talk like "Yo what's up."

The most bizarre part of it is that not only Carmen Ortiz the lead prosecutor, but Judge O'Toole made public statements condemning Jahar's interpretation of his own religion.

"You did it on purpose... It is tragic, for your victims and now for you, surely someone who believes God smiles on and rewards the killing of innocents believes in a cruel god. This is not and cannot be the god of Islam," said the judge right before condemning Jahar to death. So is he being executed for murder or for a politically incorrect interpretation of Islam?

U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz, whose office prosecuted Tsarnaev, said she was "struck more by what he didn't say.

"He didn't renounce terrorism, he didn't renounce violent extremism, and he couched his comments in line with Allah and Allah's view, which gave it a religious tone, and there was nothing...about this crime that was Islam-associated."

Tsarnaev adhered to a radicalized version of Islam was not in line with the faith's "peaceful and loving" roots, Ortiz explained.

"The youth will not stay quiet while America is killing the innocent Muslims. As my sons there will be many many many inshallah! And I will die with my love towards them," texted Jahar's mother to a supporter.

"Your country kills the brothers and sisters and those good hearted and beautiful souls like my sons who love their ummah cannot see the conspiracies of your government towards our ummah and things like that happen! For example if someone kills my brother or my sister I will not blink and destroy whoever killed them - why?? Because I love them...Everything is by Allah's will... Allah knows the intention and the purity of it and what was the intention for!" concluded Jahar's mother.

I am worried that they are going to execute Jahar before we learn the true story. His statement created as many questions as it answered. This is quite a decade, quite a century, already. However, Jahar has been moved to a prison in Florence, Colorado. It is nearby but not the same place where Imam Jamil al-Amin is being held in Supermax.

If Jahar didn't bomb the marathon, who did?

Boston - Accused Marathon bomber, Dzhokhar (Jahar) Tsarnaev’s last pre-trial hearing took place on December 18th. He still resolutely refuses to plead guilty for a crime he claims he did not commit. I watched the proceedings in the overflow room and also participated in a protest outside the courthouse, where I was interviewed by reporters from every news channel.

I explained to them that I want a fair trial for Jahar. The public deserves to know what really happened. We need to make sure we got the right guy. Erroneous media reports based on leaks from anonymous law enforcement officials have been presented to the public in lieu of evidence, and have greatly biased the jury pool against the defendant before he has even gone to trial. As to whether or not I personally think he’s innocent, I would say, based on past prosecutions by US Attorney Carmen Ortiz’s team in front of the same Judge O’Toole, that it is highly probable that the young man is simply a victim of anti-Islamic prejudice.

For example, Tarek Mehanna was sentenced to over 17 years for joking comments he made on the internet, which the government misconstrued as planning to commit terrorist acts. His trial was based on highly inflammatory statements against the Islamic religion, irrelevant evidence such as beheading videos, expert testimony from career neocons, and plea bargains from acquaintances who were facing decades in prison unless they testified against Mehanna. Based on the media reports, during the time of the trial, many people in the Muslim community refused to stand up for their brother and spent energy distancing themselves from him. It was only after sentencing that he was allowed to speak out about his unjust conviction.

In Jahar’s case, he is not just accused of thought crimes but actual explosions that killed and maimed people. If he is innocent, then the real bomber is still at large. In the worst case scenario, Jahar was chosen as a fall guy to cover up for a plot that is much more sinister. So far, there have been no bomb making materials found in either his home nor that of his brother. The government has never once claimed that the fireworks that his friends took out of his dorm room were linked to the bombing. The government prosecuted the friends for lying about throwing away the backpacks, in order to pressure them to testify against their friend.

If there is evidence that Jahar and his brother Tamerlan had something to do with the Boston Marathon bombings, then the public still deserves to know the bigger picture. I have no problem with executing a criminal who committed murder but I have a huge problem with someone being executed in order to silence him. The government has silenced almost every potential defense witness. Jahar’s friends, relatives, friends of friends and even relatives of friends of friends have been deported, imprisoned and even killed by the FBI. The defense complains that they are having trouble getting anyone to talk due to government intimidation.

Furthermore, defense lawyers have complained that the prosecution is being evasive instead of presenting clear arguments as to why they believe he is the bomber. They don’t seem to want to “unravel the mystery.”

I don’t know if the truth will ever come out in this courtroom. It is not being played as a straightforward prosecution. The government is playing chess, not proving their point.

Hearing after hearing, the defense has been begging the prosecution to present their argument. Instead, the government has dumped on them millions of pages of unsearchable computer records without any explanation as to their significance. US Attorney Weinreb has consistently argued, with a smirk on his face, that if the government were to present their case to the defense, the defense would be able to come up with a counter-argument, which would be unfair to prosecutors; therefore they need to keep the element of surprise. Yet at the same time, the government has been illegally feeding news stories to the media. The defense complained that they are learning more about the government’s narrative of this case from the television than they are getting from the other attorneys. The government is not playing fair, which leads to the question of whether it is covering up the truth.

In 95% of cases since 9/11, where Muslims are accused of terrorism related acts, the FBI has been involved. We need to know more about the extent of FBI involvement in the Boston Marathon bombing suspects’ lives. His mother stated to reporters last year that the FBI had been interviewing Tamerlan on a regular basis for two years before the bombing. He had been asked to become an informant. They knew him well. So, the most likely scenario is either that he bombed the marathon as an employee of the FBI, or else that he was framed for a crime he did not commit in retaliation for refusing to become an informant for the FBI.

I don’t want to live in a country where the FBI can just come into your house and murder you because you knew somebody, where they can just accuse you of a bombing and then, instead of presenting evidence in a court of law, make up TV docu-dramas about you without even consulting you for your side of the story. Perhaps it’s not as important to ordinary Americans that their government obey the rule of law, but as someone whose parents came to this country and swore their allegiance to the US Constitution, I see no other course of action possible other than standing up and fighting for what my country stands for.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is an American citizen with rights. He came to this country as a refugee. He loved living here. He had many friends, no criminal record, and absolutely no motive to hurt anyone. If people don’t stand up for his rights, next week it could be your son in shackles.

Tarek Mehanna Appeal Hearing

November 27, 2013 by TMO 

Tarek Mahenna in court, artist’s rendering.

Observers at Tarek Mehanna’s appeal hearing heard from a panel of three judges on November 13, 2013. They filled the courthouse and two overflow rooms.

Judge Bruce Selya began the session with a disturbing comment reminiscent of Nazi German descriptions of its Jewish population as a disease: “Terrorism is the modern-day equivalent of the bubonic plague: it is an existential threat.”

Mehanna, a Massachusetts College of Pharmacy graduate and former teacher at Alhuda Academy in Worcester, was convicted in 2012 of conspiring to kill American soldiers and supporting Al Qaeda. Mehanna’s lawyers insist that he gave no tangible support to al-Qaida, and his online activities were protected free speech. This case has drawn widespread interest because of its implications on protected vs. unprotected speech in its connection to terrorism related charges.

In arguments before the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Mehanna’s lawyer, Sabin Willett, said prosecutors repeatedly showed images of the World Trade Center in flames, videos of beheadings, and repeatedly made references to Osama bin Laden in an attempt to prejudice the jury against Mehanna.

‘’The purpose of this evidence was to frighten the jury,’’ Willett said, ‘’and it worked.’’

Judges Howard, Selya and Thompson upheld Mehanna’s conviction and sentence of 17 1/2 years.

Prosecutors said during Mehanna’s trial that he traveled to Yemen in 2004 to for terrorist training with plans to attack American soldiers in Iraq, but that the plan failed.

Mehanna’s lawyers argued that he traveled to Yemen to pursue religious studies.

Prosecutors relied heavily on the well-known fraud “expert witness” Evan Kohlmann.

What is not being discussed is that in the past, especially while the US was fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan, CIA-run “terror camps” were popular tourist attractions, similar to how nowadays Israel attracts Jewish tourists with the promise of rifle training. Mehanna reportedly expressed disappointment that such training camps no longer exist in Yemen.

Benjamin Wittes comments on Lawfare Blog. “The court of appeals held that the general guilty verdict could be sustained, even assuming for the sake of argument that the evidence of coordination with al Qaeda on Mehanna’s Internet activities had been inadequate to support that verdict–that is to say, even if Mehanna’s translation and advocacy were constitutionally protected… By eliminating Mehanna’s Internet activities altogether from the issues on appeal, the court thereby ensured that Mehanna will not be the important First Amendment precedent that many had thought it might be.”

US Attorney Carmen Ortiz, whose staff prosecuted Mehanna, hailed the ruling.

“We are gratified that the Court of Appeals carefully reviewed the case, found the evidence of the defendant’s guilt was more than sufficient to convict the defendant, and held that it was ‘confident’ that, in the court’s words, [Mehanna] ‘was fairly tried, justly convicted and lawfully sentenced,’ ” Ortiz said,citing the technical legality of the harsh conviction of the non-violent offender. 

Judge Selya wrote in rejection of the appeal that Mehanna’s co-conspirators had “testified that the defendant persistently stated his belief that engaging in jihad was “a duty upon a Muslim if he’s capable of performing it,” and that this duty included committing violence.

Following United States intervention in Iraq, the defendant concluded “that America was at war with Islam,” and saw American “soldiers as being valid targets” by the attacked people. Mehanna took the position that “there was an obligation for Muslims to stand up and fight against invasion of Iraq.

“The fundamental problem with the [appellate] ruling is that it allows the government to prosecute unpopular political speech,” said Alex Abdo, staff attorney at the ACLU’s National Security Project. 

Yet, beyond Mehanna’s religious belief in the concept of Jihad, or Just Warfare, he also claimed adherence to the doctrine of “aman,” which he describes as “a covenant to obey the law within a country that permits practice of the faith.” His adherence to aman would prohibit him personally from targeting American troops.

“The defendant’s position can be stated without much ceremony. He suggests… that although he may have sympathized with al-Qa’ida and spoken glowingly of the virtues of jihad, he nonetheless avoided crossing the line into criminal activity,” admits Selya.

However, Selya insists that: “Even if the government’s translation-as-material-support theory were factually insufficient, we would not reverse.”

Selya emotionally referred to the defendant’s flippant attitude regarding the “Texas BBQ” video — a phrase describing American soldiers being bombed in a widespread online video. Yet, this type of light-hearted style of murderous political commentary is very common among many Americans. One can only conclude that Mehanna is guilty of acting too American; too self-confident as a Muslim American, that he could joke about war.

Judge Selya concludes:

“We do not pretend to understand why the defendant chose to go down such a treacherous path. Nevertheless, the jury found that he knowingly and intentionally made that choice, and that finding is both supported by the clear weight of the evidence and untainted by legal error.”

It is truly unfortunate that an educated person such as Selya cannot even pretend to understand, let alone attempt to understand, why a Muslim American might sympathize with other Muslims globally, who are on the receiving end of drone attacks and worse. The court proceedings drew upon anti-Muslim prejudice not only in regards to the free speech issues but also regarding the question of who is allowed to travel abroad and for what reason.

In a world where armed, violent terrorists are trained by the US government – in Massachusetts – to send into other countries to influence political outcomes; in a world where youngsters go to Israeli terror camps to be trained in genocidal “fun,” I cannot think of anything more alarming than a judge who cannot “pretend to understand” the idea that any Muslim American might strive for freedom and equality – American style. Mehanna acted independently through free speech and free travel, without ever picking up a gun.

“The court’s likening of terrorism to ‘the modern-day equivalent of the bubonic plague’ is an example of the kind of sensational language that ensured a biased trial against Dr. Mehanna in the first place,” stated the Tarek Mehanna Support Committee. “The appeals court decision is outrageous, but we will continue to stand by Dr. Mehanna.”
“Tarek remains strong and unwavering in his iman,” reports Mehanna’s Facebook support page.