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Final defendant to plead guilty in alleged Buffalo 'sleeper' cell case
BUFFALO, New York (CNN) -- The sixth and final member of an alleged "sleeper" cell in upstate New York will plead guilty to providing material support to terrorism, CNN has learned. Defendant Mukhtar Al-Bakri is scheduled to make a plea on Monday, federal prosecutors said. Al-Bakri, 22, is the youngest of the Yemeni-Americans who attended an al Qaeda terrorist camp in Afghanistan in the summer of 2001, just a few months before the Islamist terrorist group orchestrated the September 11 terrorist attacks. The other five men have already entered guilty pleas -- Sahim Alwan, 30, Faysal Galab, 25, Shafel Mosed, 24, Yahya Goba, 26, and Yasein Taher, 25 -- and face from seven to 10 years in prison. The men have admitted to attending the now-destroyed al Farooq camp near Kandahar, Afghanistan, for as long as six weeks, hearing al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden speak, and learning how to fire handguns and assault rifles. Al-Bakri was among those who was shown a demonstration of explosives such as TNT and C-4. The six men grew up and lived in the city of Lackawanna, near Buffalo. Like thousands of other Yemeni immigrants, their families moved there to work for Bethlehem Steel. En route to the camp through Pakistan, the men stayed at a guesthouse where they were shown a movie about the bombing of the USS Cole that killed 17 sailors in a Yemen port in October 2000. The Justice Department announced charges in that terrorist attack Thursday. Al-Bakri was one of the first alleged cell members to tell FBI interrogators he went to the camp, according to the charges, but told agents he did not consider himself to be a member of al Qaeda. He said bin Laden had told the recruits, who were from various countries, that "there was going to be a fight against Americans," according to the charges. Investigators found a .22-caliber handgun and a rifle with a telescopic lens in Al-Bakri's last known residence, along with a cassette tape labeled as a "call to jihad" and allegedly containing anti-American sentiments. Al-Bakri's defense attorney has said the rifle belonged to the defendant's father and that the cassette was 20 years old and refers to the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, which U.S.-backed soldiers opposed and fought. FBI Director Robert Mueller reiterated last month that he believed the "Lackawanna Six" constituted a "sleeper cell" waiting for orders to participate in some terrorist attack. However, Mueller and prosecutors have said they have no evidence indicating that the men were actively engaged in any such plot. All of the men have been in U.S. custody since last September. -- From CNN Senior Producer Phil Hirschkorn in New York
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