US News

Texas-born al Qaeda bomber ‘turned his back’ on US: prosecutors

A Texas-born man on trial for his role in the 2009 ​a​l Qaeda-orchestrated bombing of a U.S. base in Afghanistan “turned his back on this country” to “murder Americans,” prosecutors told jurors ​as his trial got underway in Brooklyn ​Tuesday.

“He turned his back on this country, joined terrorists, and lived with them for seven years until he was caught,” Assistant US Attorney Saritha Komatireddy said as she pointed at Mohanad Mahmoud Al Farekh.

​The feds say ​Al Farekh ​took part in a plot to bomb the ​A​rmy base with explosive​s​-filled trucks. But the Jan. 2009 plot failed when the first truck detonated at the gate, and the second truck, which was packed w​​ith enough ​ammo to take out the entire camp, fell into the crater caused by the first truck and the driver fled.

The unidentified driver was shot dead moments later.

The 32-year-old ​​Al Farekh​ ​​was done in by a fingerprint preserved on the “sticky, brown” packing tape wrapping the unexploded bomb, said Komatireddy.

The prosecutor painted Al Farekh, who was born in Houston to Jordanian parents and educated in Dubai, as an intensely secretive person who disappeared into Pakistan and took on the name “Abdullah AlShami” in 2007 after he was radicalized online. He was nabbed and extradited to the U.S. in 2014.

Jurors will hear in Al Farekh’s “own words” how he was “obsessed with operating in secret, and committed to the terrorist cause” as an “American who sought to kill other Americans,” Komatireddy promised.

Yet defense attorney David A. Ruhnke said the government’s case was built “on witnesses who have committed terrible crimes,” and should be discounted.”

Najibullah Zazi and Zarein Ahmedizay are expected to take the stand as prosecution witnesses. They both pleaded guilty to taking part in a failed 2009 plot to launch bombings on New York City subways.

“These are witnesses who have a deep interest in this prosecution, who have something to gain,” Ruhnke told the panel.

If convicted of conspiring to murder US nationals and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction, Al Farekh faces life in prison.