May 18, 2006	Thursday	Rabi-us-Sani 19, 1427

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NEW YORK, May 17: The credibility of a Pakistani immigrant accused in an August 2004 subway bombing plot, was attacked by the prosecutors in a US Federal Court, as his cross examination continued on Wednesday.

Shahawar Matin Siraj, maintains that he was entrapped by the police informer into making comments which eventually implicated him in the so-called plot. The prosecutors accused him of being an angry young man prone to violence.

He testified that he never had a violent thought before he met a paid police informer who inflamed his anger toward the United States. Mr Siraj, 23, told the jury that the police informer had shown him dozens of images, including pictures of prisoners being abused at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and a video of the fatal shooting of a 12-year-old Palestinian boy who died in his father’s arms in Gaza.

In a report, the New York Times said that Mr Siraj testified for about four hours under questioning by one of his lawyers, Khurrum B. Wahid. Later in the day, a prosecutor took over, throwing rapid-fire questions at Mr Siraj about his earlier statements on suicide bombings and the United States.

The defence has acknowledged that Mr Siraj took part in a conspiracy. Mr Wahid yesterday tried to bolster the defence argument that the plot was driven by the informer, Osama Eldawoody. He asked Mr Siraj who he felt had been the leader of the conspiracy, which also included another young man who pleaded guilty and testified for the prosecution.

“Basically, according to me, it came from Eldawoody,” Mr Siraj said. “He was the one who want to do these things.”

Mr Siraj also said that he came up with the Herald Square subway plot in an effort to impress Mr Eldawoody after becoming jealous when the informer praised the other young man’s plan to bomb the four bridges linking Staten Island to Brooklyn and New Jersey, the Times reported.

During cross-examination, an assistant US attorney, Marshall Miller, suggested that Mr Siraj had approved of suicide bombings long before he had met Mr Eldawoody and had said that such attacks were going to happen in the United States because of its policy toward Israel.

Mr Miller pressed him about a conversation that the prosecutor suggested he had in late 2002 with a young man named Kamel in an Islamic bookstore in Brooklyn where Mr Siraj worked.

“Sir, did you say to Kamel at any point, ‘Inshallah, America will be attacked again very soon?’” Mr Miller asked, using the Arabic word for “God willing.”

“I don’t remember,” Mr Siraj responded.

“You’re saying you did not say it?” the prosecutor asked.

“I’m saying I don’t remember,” Mr Siraj said.

Mr Miller also questioned him about a conversation that the prosecutor said occurred on Nov 15, 2002. He asked whether Mr Siraj had told Kamel, whom he identified as a friend of Mr Siraj’s, “that suicide bombings in Israel are O.K. because Palestinians have no chance to get even.”

Mr Siraj said he did not remember.

His lawyers said that they expect the government to call Kamel, who was not further identified yesterday, as a witness later in the trial to try to rebut their client’s testimony.

Mr Siraj’s cross examination continues in the US Federal Court.