Terror suspects appear in court for formal charges (3rd Roundup)

May 21, 2009, 21:34 GMT

New York - A United States court on Thursday charged four men arrested on suspicion of terrorist activities with conspiracy to acquire weapons of mass destruction and blow up a Jewish temple in New York.

Three of the four suspects appeared before a judge at a federal court at White Plains, in upstate New York, with the fourth defendant apparently hospitalized for some illness and receiving a bedside arraignment, local news reports said.

The four suspects were arrested late Wednesday by Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and local police.

'We live in a dangerous world,' said New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. 'The New York Police Department did exactly what they're trained to do and have prevented what could have been a terrible event in our city.'

News reports said that law enforcement agents watched the suspects on Wednesday planting the purported bombs at the synagogue before moving in to arrest the men.

The men were given fake explosives in a year-long sting operation conducted by the FBI using an informant. They also received a disarmed anti-aircraft missile, because they wanted to shoot down planes at the Air National Guard base at Stewart Airport in Newburgh, about 100 kilometres north of New York City.

'The bombs had been made by the FBI technicians. They were totally inert. No one was ever at risk,' New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

The four suspects were identified as James Cromitie, David Williams, Onta Williams and Laguerre Payen, all residents of Newburgh, New York. The local news report said Payen was hospitalized.

   Each defendant could face life in prison. The mandatory minimum sentences are 25 years in prison, if convicted on the charges filed Thursday.

FBI agents and police mounted a surveillance operation starting in June 2008.

'The defendants wanted to engage in terrorist attacks,' said Lev Dassin, acting US attorney for the Southern District of New York.

'They selected targets and sought the weapons necessary to carry out their plans. Fortunately, the defendants sought the assistance of a witness cooperating with the government. While the weapons provided to the defendants by the cooperating witness were fake, the defendants thought they were absolutely real.'

The federal criminal complaint alleged that the case began when Cromitie expressed to the informant in June 2008 a desire to do 'something to America' because he was upset by the war in Afghanistan and that many Muslims were killed by US forces there and in Pakistan.

Cromitie said he would go to 'paradise' if he died a martyr and told the informant he wanted to 'do jihad,' the federal complaint said.

The informant later claimed involvement with Pakistan-based Jaish- e-Mohammed, which is designated by the United States as a foreign terrorist organization, and pretended to aid the conspirators in their preparations.