Yesterday's Oregonian had an interesting story about the FBI's pre-sting contact with Portland bomb sting defendant Mohamed Mohamud. Apparently, the contact was all via email, so the record is clear(?) as to the exact wording of the communications, though of course lawyers can always find things to argue about:
Mohamud's defense team contends in court papers that the emails show the FBI was trying to induce the Somali-American teen into committing a crime, a key element of their entrapment defense. But prosecutors argue that Mohamud didn't ignore or question what Smith wrote -- he offered advice on staying under the radar.
"(I) would advise you move to a more populated Muslim area," Mohamud wrote. "For security be more careful, its a good thing you talked to me because you can get tricked into saying something that will get you into trouble for nothing ... But don't put yourself out there. There are lots of spies."
Smith didn't listen.
"It looks like there has been some action against the (W)est in the last few weeks," he wrote on Dec. 1, 2009. "(I) cant tell you how easy it should be to bring any community here in the (W)est to its knees."
Mohamud responded, "(B)rother, i don't think you should talk about such issues, especially online."
"It looks like there has been some action against the (W)est in the last few weeks,
Posted by: Mohamud | April 02, 2012 at 06:19 PM