Indictment reveals little hard evidence of terrorist plot

The Orlando Sentinel
Jun. 24, 2006

MIAMI - From the barber's chair at a shop called The Spot where he gets his regular razor shave, Christopher Johnson often wondered about the odd men at the bunker-like warehouse across the street.

"They ran around like ninjas dressed in black and military fatigues," Johnson, a burly bodyguard and bouncer said Friday. "I thought they were some young guys up to something, but I didn't know if it was good or bad."

Seven of the men were definitely up to no good, authorities say. According to a federal indictment unsealed Friday, they were a cadre of al-Qaida wannabes who planned to create an "Islamic army" and "wage a full ground war" on the United States by blowing up the Sears Tower in Chicago and FBI offices in Miami, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City and Washington, D.C.

But, long on ambition, they were short on success. They acquired combats boots, a cell phone, a camera and some cash, but never stockpiled explosives, carried out a mission nor posed any real threat.

They also had another major problem. The al-Qaida representative who allegedly told them he had come "from overseas" to evaluate and finance their jihad was actually a government informant, authorities said.

"They hoped that their attacks would be, in their own words, `just as good or greater than 9-11,"" said U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta. "They certainly had the will. They were searching for the way. "

Arrested were Patrick Abraham, 26, of North Miami; Burson Augustin, 21, of Miami; Rotschild Augustine, 22, of Miami-Dade County; Narseal Batiste, 32; Naudimar Herrera, 22, Lyglenson Lemorin, 31, and Stanley Grant Phanor, 31, all of Miami.

Except for Abraham, an illegal immigrant from Haiti, and Lemorin, a legal permanent resident from Haiti, all are U.S. citizens, a spokeswoman with the U.S. attorney's office in Miami said.

They are charged with two counts of conspiring to support a foreign terrorist organization, one count of conspiring to destroy buildings by use of explosives and one count of conspiring to wage war against the government. Each faces a maximum sentence of 70 years.

In Washington, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said the arrests highlighted the dangers of "homegrown terrorists." He compared the men with community conspirators involved in the 2005 London bombings and the 2004 Madrid train attack.

"Today terrorist threats may come from smaller, more loosely defined cells who are not affiliated with al-Qaida, but who are inspired by a violent jihadist message, and left unchecked, these homegrown terrorists may prove to be as dangerous as groups like al-Qaida," Gonzales said.

In Miami, Acosta said, it hardly mattered that the men appeared to be better dreamers and talkers than terrorists.

"They had the intent. They had the desire. They took steps toward accomplishing their mission," he said.

Among the steps: Batiste, the alleged leader and a construction worker who once lived in Chicago, met with a man he thought was "an al-Qaida representative" and requested $50,000 and a host of items to build his Islamic Army, court documents say. The items included combat boots, uniforms, machine guns, radios, vehicles, bulletproof vests, a cell phone and cameras to take reconnaissance pictures of targeted buildings.

"If I can put up a building, I should definitely know how to take one down," Batiste is alleged to have told the informant in one of their meetings.

The informant, described in court documents as a cooperating witness of Arab descent, fulfilled some of Batiste's requests, giving him eight pair of military boots, a cell phone, $3,500 cash and a digital camera capable of taking photos and videos of building.

He also administered the al-Qaida oath of "bayat" to each of the suspects, who according to courts documents, pledged to be an Islamic soldier, loyal to the path of al-Qaida. Federal prosecutors released photos of the men purportedly taking the oath, as well as several of the purported surveillance pictures they took of buildings in Miami.

Family members and friends of two of the men, Lemorin and Phanor, had not seen the photos but said Friday their loved ones were incapable of harming anyone. Batiste, they said, showed up on their street one day wearing a long robe, a skull cap and bearing a bible and an intriguing promise to study the Holy Book and martial arts.

"They didn't know what Batiste was up to," said Sylvain Plantin, 30, Lemorin's cousin. "This was a spiritual thing. All they were doing was trying to find God."

Batiste first came to the attention of law enforcement in October 2005, when, according to court documents, he asked an individual who was traveling to the Middle East to help him find foreign Islamic extremists to fund his mission. Instead, court documents say, the person alerted the FBI, which in turn infiltrated the group.

By then, the men had caught the attention of many of their neighbors in Liberty City, a predominantly black Miami area indelibly scarred by the city's worst race riots in 1980.

They said the men often dressed in black, handed out food, talked about their plans to build a church, or a karate school. They gathered and stayed overnight at a bunker-like warehouse with no windows, no electricity and no running water, often carrying buckets of sand for exercise.

"I'd see them carry those buckets over to the empty house over and that church and fill them with water," said Lillian Gordon, 57, a retired lab technician. "You'd see them preaching all the time. They said they were a ministry."

One legal expert questioned how dangerous the seven really were, and said the role of the informant would be key to their defense.

"If the authorities created the crime, that's classic entrapment," said Jeffrey Harris, president of the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.

The suspects do not appear to have extensive criminal histories in Florida, records show. North Miami Beach police arrested Batiste an aggravated battery charge on March 5, 2006, records said, but the case was dropped by prosecutors.

Phanor has six prior arrests, including three concealed weapons cases. Records show he was sentenced in 2002 to two years of probation.

Surveying the hordes of media outside the barber shop, Johnson questioned why Liberty City doesn't always merit such attention.

"People hear the word `terrorist' and come running, but we have homicides every day, and the cops don't show up asking questions for three days," he said.