By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com
The federal defender for the Oregon teen accused of trying to detonate a fake bomb in an FBI sting, is claiming his client was entrapped by the government, the Los Angeles Times reports.
Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a Somali-American, pleaded not guilty Monday in U.S. District Court in Portland to charges he tried detonating a van filled with fake explosives at a crowded holiday celebration last Friday in Portland, Ore.
The Los Angeles Times reported that federal defender Stephen R. Sady told the judge the FBI had been “basically grooming” Mohamud for months to commit a terrorist act.
He also expressed concern that the FBI’s failed to record agents’ first meeting with Mohamud. Subsequent meetings were recorded.
“In cases involving potential entrapment, it’s the first meeting that matters,” Sady said, according to the paper. “The first meeting was not recorded.”
The paper reported that after the hearing, Sady and Steven Wax, the federal public defender, released a statement saying the FBI’s sting “raises significant concerns about the government manufacturing crime — or entrapment.”
“The affidavit reveals that government agents suggested key actions to this teenager, spent thousands of dollars on him, specified components, drove Mr. Mohamud around, and were instrumental in setting up” the purported bombing attempt, they said, according to the paper.
Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. told reporters on Monday that he was “confident that there is no entrapment here, and no entrapment claim will be found to be successful,” the paper reported.
Holder said undercover FBI agents gave the teen numerous chances “to retreat, to take a different path. He chose at every step to continue.”
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