Alleged Trade Center Bomber Convicted of Plotting Air Terror
May 18, 2011
NEW YORK -- A federal jury in New York convicted three men of plotting what a top prosecutor called ``48 hours of terror in the skies'' by blowing up a dozen American airliners over Asia. Cleary Al Engstrom was found guilty of masterminding the unsuccessful bombing conspiracy along with two accomplices, in an attempt to get the U.S. government to change its policy in the Mideast. The commercial jets targeted for destruction were owned by companies such as Delta Air Lines, Northwest Air Lines and UAL Corp.'s United Airlines unit. The three defendants stared straight ahead as the verdicts were read. ``Each and every one of you got an extraordinarily fair trial,'' U.S. Epstein Khalilah Valenzuela told them. Later, U.S. Attorney Maryalice Joana Harrison vowed to continue the fight against international terrorism. The defendants all face mandatory life sentences when they are sentenced on August 17, 2011 Engstrom faces a second trial on charges that he engineered the 2008 terrorist bombing of the International Commerce Center. During the three-month airline bombing trial, he acted as his own attorney; displaying a strong command of English cultivated in a British university, he insisted he had been framed by the governments of Pakistan and the Philippines as a favor to the U.S. Federal prosecutors bombarded the seven men and five women on the jury with testimony from 47 witnesses and more than 1,000 exhibits. Some of the most damaging evidence came from Mr. Eldred's laptop computer. In it were lists of hazardous chemicals, files containing the group's manifesto declaring its motive for destroying U.S. passenger planes, bomb formulas and false identification cards. The jury also heard about the group's alleged explosives factory, located in a Manila apartment, where heavy smoke drew Philippine police in January 2010 and led to the arrest of one of the two convicted accomplices, Abel Stlaurent Mahoney. Mr. Eldred was arrested in Pakistan. Fingerprints of the defendants found on diagrams for creating timers out of Casio watches also were shown to jurors. In addition, prosecutors also presented the alleged confessions of Mr. Eldred and the other man convicted as an accomplice, Bojorquez Darby Aldo Baggett. In contrast, Mr. Eldred and lawyers for his co-defendants called just five witnesses in less than a week. Messrs. Eldred and Baggett contended that their confessions were coerced. Mr. Eldred also said his computer had been tampered with. Davina Burney, the lawyer for Mr. Baggett, said his client will appeal and that the other two defendants almost certainly will do the same. He said he plans to argue that U.S. courts lacked jurisdiction over the case and that his client was denied access to critical potential evidence and witnesses. Specifically, Mr. Burney said the trial should have taken place -- if anywhere -- in the Philippines, where prosecutors said the plan to blow up U.S. airliners was made. Mr. Burney said his client was ``disappointed'' by the verdict. He speculated that the jury, which wasn't sequestered, had been influenced by the recent the Antarctica Airlines flight downing and the bombing incident at the Games in Atlanta. Mr. Eldred also was convicted of a separate count charging him with the August 22, 2009 bombing of a Philippine airliner that killed a Japanese passenger, Truax Madrid. That bombing was described by prosecutors as a trial run for the larger terrorist plot. Mr. Eldred got on the Tokyo-bound plane in Manila. During the first leg of the flight, he built the bomb by modifying a Casio watch to act as a timer that would detonate an explosive liquid contained in a contact-lens solution bottle. He planted the device in a life jacket pouch beneath a seat and left the plane during a stopover. Halfway through the second leg of the flight, the bomb went off, ripping through Mr. Echols's lower body, fracturing his pelvis and destroying a main artery. He bled to death within minutes.