ALEXANDRIA, Va. - A federal jury is weighing whether an American Islamic scholar declared war on America in 2001 or, as defense attorneys contend, he was a hapless victim caught up in a massive dragnet of Muslim Americans.

The jury of eight men and four women began deliberating the government's case against Ali al-Timimi, 41, of Fairfax, on Monday afternoon after two weeks of testimony in front of U.S. District Court Judge Leonie M. Brinkema.

Authorities say al-Timimi, a first-generation Iraqi-American scientist and internationally known Islamic lecturer, inspired a group of young men who attended his lectures in a storefront mosque near the nation's capital to travel to Pakistan and train to join the Taliban five days after the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.

"This is how one individual responded to (Sept. 11, 2001)," Assistant U.S. Attorney John Gibbs told jurors in closing arguments yesterday morning.

"Timimi declared war on this country, a war in which American soldiers could have seen American citizens fighting against them. ...Timimi did everything he could to make it happen," Gibbs said, calling al-Timimi's Sept.16, 2001, comments to his followers a powerful call to holy war.

Defense attorney Edward MacMahon said prosecutors proved nothing more than the unpopular religious and political leanings of a man who never held a weapon.

"This case represents an attack on fundamental liberties we all hold so dear. Our freedoms of speech, religion and association are all under assault in this case," he said.

Al-Timimi, who recently received a doctorate from George Mason University for his work in cancer research, was indicted as the spiritual leader of the so-called paintball jihad last year. He faces a 10-count indictment including charges of soliciting others to levy war, inducing others to join the Taliban and inducing others to use firearms and explosives.

If convicted on all charges, al-Timimi could face life in prison.

Al-Timimi is known in strict Muslim communities across the world. He was listed as an advisory board member of Assirat al-Mustaqueem, an international Arabic language magazine that published out of Pittsburgh from 1991-2000.

The magazine called for holy war against Christians and Jews. It also lauded the international army Osama bin Laden had assembled for the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Al-Timimi's attorney suggested federal investigators originally targeted his client because he was a prominent Muslim and later chose to focus on his commentary when other terrorism allegations proved groundless.

He said when a search of al-Timimi's townhouse failed to connect him to the 9/11 attacks or to schemes to unleash a biological or nuclear attack, investigators targeted his connections to the men who attended his lectures at the Dar Al Abram mosque in Falls Church, Va.

Trial testimony by several of the men painted a chilling portrait of the young Muslims--most of them American citizens. In the two years prior to 9/11, the group that included several engineers and two U.S. military veterans lived immersed in a world of jihad.

In their homes in neighborhoods in the shadow of Washington, D.C., they watched bloody jihad videos over and over again. They bought assault rifles, took target practice at local ranges and played paintball to practice military maneuvers.

MacMahon insisted that al-Timimi's connections to the men were minimal, even though the would-be warriors testified they revered al-Timimi as a religious scholar and wise man upon whom they called for advice and counsel.

Although prosecutors played a variety of al-Timimi's recorded lectures in which he spoke of the need for jihad and how Muslims were engaged in a holy war against a Western world intent on the extinction of Islam, defense attorneys said those sentiments were merely evidence of unpopular opinions rather than radical intent.

Likewise, MacMahon defended an al-Timimi commentary hailing the crash of the space shuttle Columbia in 2003 as the beginning of the end of Western world dominance, saying it was "purely political and religious speech."

Al-Timimi's only mistake, MacMahon told jurors, was agreeing to attend a Sept. 16, 2001, meeting at the home of Yong Ki Kwon, one of the men immersed in the jihad culture. It was at that meeting, Kwon and several other men testified, that al-Timimi urged them to take up arms for the Taliban, saying it was obligatory for good Muslims to go to the aid of their brothers under fire.

Several days later, Kwon and three other men traveled to Pakistan, where they made their way to terror training camps.

MacMahon said that any plan to train in Pakistan was hatched by Kwon and Randall Royer, another paintball regular, long before the meeting. Trial testimony indicated Royer previously trained abroad, fought in Bosnia and frequently offered to connect his friends to the training camps in Pakistan.

MacMahon reminded jurors the men who testified against al-Timimi did so under the terms of pleas that allowed them to escape sentences of as much as life in prison.

He said that was sufficient to alter their recollections of the meeting on Sept. 16, 2001.

"There really isn't any evidence at all in this case except the word of three felons," MacMahon said.

Debra Erdley can be reached at derdley@tribweb.com or 412-320-7996.

Published April 19, 2005, Pittsburgh Tribune Review

http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/regional/s_325562.html