US Al-Qaeda recruit testifies at New York terror trial
3/7/2014 6:06:39 AM
An American Al-Qaeda recruit told the New York trial of Osama bin Laden's son-in-law Thursday how he met the late terror mastermind and the defendant in Afghanistan.
Sahim Alwan, one of six men from Lackawanna, New York convicted of supporting a foreign terror group, was called by US prosecutors to testify against Suleiman Abu Ghaith, the most senior alleged Al-Qaeda member to face trial in a US federal court.
The 41-year-old witness, who served seven years in prison on his terror conviction, told the court that he traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2001 and spent a week in an Al-Qaeda training camp in the mountains near Kandahar.
While he spent more than two hours providing riveting details about how Western Muslims traveled to Al-Qaeda camps, only a few minutes of his testimony dealt with his fleeting encounter with the defendant in spring 2001.
Alwan, who works in the cell phone business, identified Abu Ghaith in an old photograph, but couldn't say "for sure" if he recognized the defendant or anyone else in the courtroom from his Afghan days.
Sahim Alwan, one of six men from Lackawanna, New York convicted of supporting a foreign terror group, was called by US prosecutors to testify against Suleiman Abu Ghaith, the most senior alleged Al-Qaeda member to face trial in a US federal court.
The 41-year-old witness, who served seven years in prison on his terror conviction, told the court that he traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2001 and spent a week in an Al-Qaeda training camp in the mountains near Kandahar.
While he spent more than two hours providing riveting details about how Western Muslims traveled to Al-Qaeda camps, only a few minutes of his testimony dealt with his fleeting encounter with the defendant in spring 2001.
Alwan, who works in the cell phone business, identified Abu Ghaith in an old photograph, but couldn't say "for sure" if he recognized the defendant or anyone else in the courtroom from his Afghan days.