American-born al Qaeda associate jailed for 27 years

Betim Kaziu traveled from Brooklyn to Cairo, Egypt to participate in attacks against US troops.


Afp March 03, 2012

NEW YORK: A New York man was on Friday sentenced to 27 years in jail for conspiring to kill American soldiers stationed overseas and on related terror charges, the US Justice Department said.

Betim Kaziu traveled from Brooklyn to Cairo, Egypt, in February 2009 to participate in attacks against US troops based in the Middle East and in the Balkans on behalf of al Qaeda, prosecutors said during the trial.

Testimony at trial established that Kaziu had been radicalized, in part, by Internet speeches of Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born cleric and leading figure in al Qaeda, who was killed in a US drone strike in Yemen last year.

Prosecutors also presented evidence from Kaziu's social networking website that included quotes from Osama bin Laden.

While Kaziu was in Cairo, he allegedly tried to acquire automatic weapons and attempted to travel to Somalia to join al-Shebab, a Somali terrorist organization allied with al Qaeda, the court heard.

He later traveled to Kosovo to target US troops stationed there, prosecutors said, but was arrested by the Kosovo Police Service on August 27, 2009.

Before his arrest, Kaziu recorded a martyrdom video on the Albanian coast in which he expressed his last thoughts before departing for "paradise". He also bought a plane ticket to Pakistan, where he had links to al Qaeda.

The Kosovo police transferred him to the New York Joint Terrorism Task Force to face terrorism charges in the United States.

COMMENTS (1)

Cautious | 12 years ago | Reply

This guy obviously didn't know that Albania was one of the few places on the planet where George Bush Jr. is considered a hero -- another "not too bright" terrorist who is going to spend a long time in jail.

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