NEW YORK — A Pakistani man who’s acting as his own attorney at a U.S. terror trial told a jury in closing arguments Monday that he was busy chasing women on the Internet at the time of his arrest – not plotting death and destruction at a busy British shopping mall.
“Abid is innocent,” said Abid Naseer, referring to himself in the third person as he had in opening statements. “He is not a terrorist. He is not an al-Qaida operative.”
In her closing argument, Assistant U.S. Attorney Zainab Ahmed told the jurors in federal court in Brooklyn that the arrests of Naseer and other members of a terror cell in Manchester, England in 2009 averted mass murder there. The government alleges Naseer had received bomb-making instruction in Pakistan.
Naseer, 28, was extradited in 2013 to face charges he conspired to provide material support to al-Qaida. He took the witness stand last week to deny the allegations, insisting emails he wrote in 2009 were full of harmless banter about looking for a potential bride after going to England to take classes.
Ahmed accused Naseer of lying and said the women’s names were code for homemade bomb ingredients
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