Report: NYC Bomb-Plot Informant Illegally Entered US Through El Paso

The confidential informant at the center of the case against four men accused of plotting to bomb New York City synagogues testified that the Federal Bureau of Investigation sent him to Pakistan in 2008 to attend a terrorist training camp, according to a report by Bloomberg.

The informant, Shahed Hussain, told a jury in New York Thursday he went to his native country in December of that year to meet someone at the camp. He didn?t identify the organization running the camp or discuss the result of the investigation.

?Are you a terrorist?? defense lawyer Susanne Brody asked Hussain in cross-examination.

?No ma?am,? he responded.

Hussain was testifying during the second day of cross- examination by Brody, a lawyer with the federal public defender?s office who is representing defendant Onta Williams.

Defense attorneys have argued that their clients are the victims of entrapment, poor men enticed into the plot with the promise of cars, cash and food by Hussain.

The lawyers for the men have tried to portray Hussain as a habitual liar who misled officials on applications for political asylum, documents relating to his fraud case and statements to parole officers.

The trial of Williams, 34, James Cromitie, 44, David Williams, 29, and Laguerre Payen, 28, all of Newburgh, New York, began Aug. 23 before Judge Colleen McMahon in federal court in Lower Manhattan.

The men are accused of plotting to bomb a synagogue and Jewish community center in the Bronx section of New York City and fire heat-seeking missiles at military planes at Stewart International Airport in Newburgh.

The charges include conspiracy and attempted use of weapons of mass destruction in the U.S. They face as long as life in prison if convicted of the most serious charges.

Hussain testified that he left Pakistan with his wife and children with less than $2,000, using fake British passports to go to Moscow and Mexico before entering the U.S. in 1994 through El Paso, Texas.

He made his way to Albany, New York, where he began working at a service station while applying for political asylum, he said.

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