American al Qaeda suspect faces new U.S. terrorism charges

By Jonathan Stempel
Jan 6 (Reuters) - Federal prosecutors in New York unveiled
new criminal charges on Wednesday against a U.S. citizen
believed to have once been an al Qaeda operative, accusing him
of involvement in a 2009 car bomb attack on a U.S. military base
in Afghanistan.
According to a nine-count indictment, Muhanad Mahmoud Al
Farekh, 30, helped prepare one of two explosive devices for use
in the Jan. 19, 2009 attack.
Prosecutors said an accomplice detonated one device, while
Al Farekh's fingerprints were found on packing tape for the
second device, which a second accomplice carried and did not
detonate. The military base was not identified.
Sean Maher, a court-appointed lawyer for Al Farekh, did not
immediately respond to request for comment.
The Texas-born Al Farekh was charged with providing material
support to al Qaeda, providing material support to terrorists
and using explosives. He also faces six conspiracy counts
including to murder Americans, use a weapon of mass destruction,
bomb a government facility and aid al Qaeda.
Al Farekh faces up to life in prison if convicted. He is
scheduled to be arraigned on Thursday before U.S. District Judge
Brian Cogan in Brooklyn, New York.
Also known as Abdullah al-Shami, Al Farekh had been detained
in Pakistan prior to being flown to Brooklyn, where he first
appeared last April 2.
He pleaded not guilty on June 4 to three criminal counts in
an indictment made public a week earlier.
Prosecutors accused Al Farekh of providing material support
to al Qaeda from Dec. 2006 to Sept. 2009, in a plot that
involved two fellow students from the University of Manitoba in
Winnipeg, Canada.
Al Farekh was purportedly inspired by Anwar Al-Awlaki, a
radical cleric whose teachings are believed by prosecutors to
have inspired terrorism plots including the 2005 London subway
bombings and a failed 2010 bombing in New York's Times Square (N:SQ).
Al-Awlaki was killed in a 2011 U.S. drone attack in Yemen.
The case is U.S. v. Al Farekh, U.S. District Court, Eastern
District of New York, No. 15-cr-00268.