Texan In Court For Assisting Al-Qaida

HOUSTON- A Texan man accused of attempting to sneak out of the United States to aid terrorist group, Al-Qaida, was tried Monday on terrorism charges. After a two-year investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) Joint Task Force, Barry Walter Bujol Jr. was finally apprehended when he attempted to use fake identification to sneak into a Houston port and board a ship bound for the Middle East. Prior to the arrest an FBI undercover informant who posed as a recruiter for al-Qaida for the Arabian Peninsula gave Bujol a bag containing GPS receivers, two nonpublic restricted-access Army manuals, money and other items that he agreed to take to al-Qaida operatives in the Middle East. In email exchanges with U.S born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who has ties to al-Qaida, Bujol expressed he wanted to “die with the brothers for the cause of Allah, and to be in Heaven.” On the contrary, Bujol claims he was never in contact with a real terrorist and that he "tried to leave the United States as an expression of not only a desire to determine my own destiny but also as an expression of disdain for American foreign policy." Bujol fired his court-appointed attorneys and was representing himself at his trial, which was being heard by a judge instead of a jury, at his request. He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted on charges of attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and aggravated identity theft.

Source: http://federalcrimesblog.com/tag/barry-walter-bujol-jr/

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