Shahawar Matin Siraj, faces a maximum life sentence after a Brooklyn federal court jury convicted him of conspiring to place and detonate an explosive on the city's mass transit system. Siraj, 23, was arrested on the eve of the 2004 Republican National Convention on charges he planned to attack a subway station in Herald Square, the dense Manhattan shopping district that includes Macy's flagship department store. Siraj claimed he was entrapped by an over-zealous police informant twice his age, Egyptian Osama Eldawoody, 50, who met the Siraj in an Islamic bookstore while spying on mosques for the New York police. Prosecutors said Siraj had the will to carry out a plot supporting his extremist views. Their case was strengthened by the testimony of a co-conspirator who pleaded guilty in the case and an undercover police officer who said Siraj openly supported Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden .
Shahawar Matin Siraj, faces a maximum life sentence after a federal court jury convicted him of conspiring to place and detonate an explosive on the city's mass transit system. Siraj, 23, was arrested on the eve of the 2004 Republican National Convention on charges he planned to attack a subway station in Herald Square, the dense shopping district that includes flagship department store. Siraj claimed he was entrapped by an over-zealous police informant twice his age, Egyptian Osama Eldawoody, 50, who met the Siraj in an bookstore while spying on mosques for the New York police. Prosecutors said Siraj had the will to carry out a plot supporting his extremist views. Their case was strengthened by the testimony of a co-conspirator who pleaded guilty in the case and an undercover police officer who said Siraj openly supported leader .
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Brooklyn
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Manhattan
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Macy's
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Islamic
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Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden
leader