Terror Suspect Says He Was Looking for Love, Not Jihad

By ELIZABETH COLUCCIO & JONATHAN GOMEZ

A Pakistani native accused of conspiring to lead a 9/11-type attack on a shopping center in Manchester, England and other terrorist acts served as his own defense lawyer at the opening his trial trial in Brooklyn Federal Court on Tuesday.

Abid Naseer’s unconventional decision to do so – against the judge’s advice — complicated the proceedings since the defendant was not allowed to approach the jury and faced other restrictions not common to a trial.

In her opening statement Asst. US Attorney Celia Cohen contended that Naseer received special training in Pakistan to be a western operative, and created an email address under an assumed female name for exclusive communication with an Al Queda leader while he prepared for the attack.

But Naseer, 28, maintained that all Internet history used by the prosecution as evidence against him was made entirely in innocence, insisting that he was searching for a wife from the United Kingdom on a dating site called qiran.com, and that his female alias was intended only to talk to women who would not speak to a man, and to prank his friends.

“All emails are not malicious and have ulterior motive,“ he said.

Cohen said that Naseer’s emails exemplified the techniques that Al Qaeda uses to avoid detection, such as the use of code words like “marriage” or “wedding” to mean an attack, and the practice of communicating through an Internet cafe rather than personal computer, which Naseer often did. According to the prosecution, Naseer would use women’s names to speak about what bombs he would use for the attacks.

“The emails said which ‘woman’ he would ‘marry,’ and when it was finalized there would be a ‘party’ – meaning attack,” said Cohen. “At the end you will see that the defendant was a key member of Al Qaeda and planned a scheme to take innocent lives.”

But Naseer countered that he did meet a woman named Naya through the dating site he subscribed to and that the relationship has gone as far as meeting each others’ families

“Committing terrorist’s acts is not justified and I do not consider this to be Jihad,” said Naseer in an earlier deposition. “I believe in a spiritual Jihad.”