>>3408326

>>3408479

>>3408383

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/17/nyregion/17plot.html

Informer in Bomb Plot Describes His Two Lives

By KAREEM FAHIMSEPT. 16, 2010

In federal court on Thursday, it was hard to tell which was more mysterious and intriguing — a government informer’s cover story, or his actual life. And sometimes, it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began.

The informer, Shahed Hussain, posed as a wealthy businessman and an operative of Jaish-e-Muhammad, a Pakistani terrorist group. As part of an F.B.I. sting operation, he drove around the suburbs north of New York City in a BMW or a Hummer, looking for Muslims to enlist in a terrorism plot taking aim at synagogues in the Bronx and military planes. He told his potential recruits that he took trips abroad to consult with his radical handlers.

In real life, he was a wealthy scion of a Pakistani business empire, he testified, who received trust fund payments even as he struggled as a small-business owner in the United States. He counted former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan as a friend, and testified that she bought his son a Mercedes. He told the jurors that he took trips abroad for the Federal Bureau of Investigation to infiltrate terrorist camps in Pakistan and a mosque in London.

A defense lawyer, Vincent L. Briccetti, asked about the difference between his two lives. “You didn’t have a problem playing a rich guy, because you are a rich guy,” he said.

Mr. Hussain said that was true.

For several hours on Wednesday, Mr. Briccetti and another lawyer, representing two of the four men charged in the plot, hammered at Mr. Hussain’s reputation, quizzing him on everything from the dates his parents had died to the word Pakistanis use for their postal service.

Their efforts to discredit Mr. Hussain may represent the defense team’s best hope for acquittals. Though the lawyers say their clients were entrapped, the defendants, in hours of recordings made by Mr. Hussain, can be heard actively planning for the attack and its aftermath.

The men were arrested on May 20, 2009, after planting fake bombs outside two synagogues.

Several times, Mr. Briccetti and the other lawyer, Susanne Brody, succeeded in making Mr. Hussain look uncomfortable; he at least reached for his water glass more frequently. He received frequent scoldings from the judge, Colleen McMahon, for not answering questions with a simple yes or no.

>>3410125

There were inconsistencies in his stories. There were also revealing details about Mr. Hussain’s life, at once dangerous and quotidian.

In 2008, he said, the F.B.I sent him to Pakistan, to visit a terrorist training camp. Ms. Brody asked how he had gained access to the camp, and Mr. Hussain said he knew people who rented houses to the terrorists.

Mr. Hussain also talked about a trip to London to investigate a mosque led by a Lebanese imam.

And he talked about meeting Ms. Bhutto, who, he said, was his old neighbor and friend from Karachi. He met her at the Ritz-Carlton in Manhattan with his son, who had just turned 17. Ms. Bhutto, who was killed in 2007, gave him $40,000 to buy the boy a Mercedes-Benz, Mr. Hussain said.

But, under questioning, Mr. Hussain also talked about his efforts to keep his children in an upstate school district, and about the trials associated with his family’s motel. In 2008, he was sued by three women who complained that the cabin they had been promised was not ready.

He lost the case.

>>3410131

Theory; Since he was an FBI asset, we’re they finished with him? Did he misbehave by going back to Pakistan and this is a reason to arrest him and take him from being a threat. Or…. did the Pakistanis learn if him being a Traitor and they caused this wreck to send a message. Either way, the story is much bigger since he was involved in rating themout since 9/11.

>>3410189

See Notables for research.