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Synagogue Terror Suspect's Mom: "This Was A Set Up"
By
Ben Yakas
Published May 15, 2011
Modified May 15, 2011
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By
Ben Yakas
Published May 15, 2011
Modified May 15, 2011
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Yesterday, one of the two men accused of planning an anti-Semitic terror attack against a Manhattan synagogue claimed that he had nothing to do with the plot. In a tearful Riker's Island interview, Mohammad Mamdouh said it was all Ahmed Ferhani's fault, and he was the one who "spoke about guns and blowing things up." But someone's mother begs to differ: Ferhani's mother told the News that Mamdouh's accusation was a lie, and said her son was the victim of entrapment. "This was a set up. They targeted my son because he is a minority," she said.
If this was a legit terror threat that the NYPD foiled, then the question still remains: why the Feds didn't take the case? When the arrests were announced on Wednesday, the Joint Terrorism Task Force said they declined to prosecute the case, because the plan was more aspirational than operational, implying that the case was over-hyped. Officials have characterized the two men as a "pair of lone wolves" not affiliated with any terrorist organizations, their neighbors called them "too stupid" to be terrorists, and Mamdouh said he didn't think Ferhani had "the balls" to kill anyone. Nevertheless, the two men were arrested after putting a down payment on weapons from undercover police: "When somebody acquires weapons and plans to bomb the largest synagogue in Manhattan he can find, what do you call it, mischief?" said NYPD spokesman Paul Browne.
Certainly, many Jewish residents are happy the NYPD apprehended the two, especially since they allegedly planned to dress up as Hasidic Jews in order to plant the bomb in the synagogue: "It takes only 1 percent of the people we don't catch for tragedy to strike our community. We are just so grateful that the police caught it in time," said " Rabbi Eli Shifrin, who leads the Chabad of Little Neck, told Little Neck Patch.
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anti-semitic
jews
manhattan
queens
synagogue
terror
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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