Judge Rules NYC Synagogue Bomb Plot Case Can Move Forward
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- A judge has declined to throw out an unusual state-level terror case against a man charged with plotting to blow up synagogues in New York City.
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The ruling came Monday in Ahmed Ferhani's case.
His lawyers said the prosecution is based on insufficient evidence and dubious police tactics that targeted a mentally unstable man.
The Manhattan district attorney's office said Ferhani was intent on attacking a synagogue and bought three guns and a grenade to do so. The buy was a sting.
Prosecutors said the 27-year-old and another man, Mohamed Mamdouh, planned to dress as Hasidic jews and go on a killing spree in synagogues.
Ferhani and Mamdouh were arrested on May 11, 2011 on charges they wanted to strike a synagogue to avenge mistreatment of Muslims around the world, authorities said.
An undercover officer who investigated them reported that Ferhani wanted to become a martyr, and wiretap recordings caught the men calling Jews "rats" and other names.
Authorities said Ferhani, 26, was nabbed in a sting buying guns, ammunition and an inert hand grenade on a Manhattan block. Mamdouh, a 20-year-old American citizen of Moroccan descent, was picked up a few blocks away.
Both have pleaded not guilty.
A grand jury declined to indict them on a top-level terror conspiracy charge. They still face other terror and hate crime charges that carry up to 32 years in prison.
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