The Associated Press
BUFFALO (AP) - One of six Yemeni-American men accused of training at an al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan months before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks pleaded guilty Monday to charges he supported al-Qaeda.
Shafal Mosed, the second man charged to reach a deal, entered the plea to a charge of knowingly and unlawfully providing and attempting to provide material resources to a foreign terrorist organization, namely al-Qaeda.
Under a plea deal, he agreed to cooperate with investigators. In exchange, prosecutors dropped one charge and agreed to seek a lighter sentence of eight years. He could have faced 15 years. Mosed, 24, was ordered held until sentencing, scheduled for July 16.
In January, co-defendant Faysal Galab reached a deal with the government in which he agreed to testify against the other five men. Since then, negotiations have been under way involving all of the others, defense and prosecuting attorneys have said.
Mosed, of suburban Lackawanna, a U.S.-born former college student who worked as a telemarketer, acknowledged that he bought a uniform and trained in the use of guns and a grenade launcher at al-Farooq training camp near Kandahar and performed guard duty while there from April to June 2001.
He also admitted hearing al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden speak to “about 50 men who were on a suicide mission.”
The married father of one admitted that he knew before he went to Afghanistan that the trip was illegal and that bin Laden was associated with the camp.
The six men, all American citizens of Yemeni descent, were arrested in September and charged with violating a 1996 law that prohibits giving money, weapons or other support to foreign terrorist organizations.
Prosecutors have said the men were awaiting orders from bin Laden’s group to carry out an attack in the United States but have acknowledged there was no evidence they posed an imminent threat.
The alleged leader of the group, Yemeni-American Kamal Derwish, was believed killed in a CIA airstrike on Nov. 3 in Yemen, U.S. officials have said.