Alexandria, USA - In the most significant case involving what prosecutors have called the Virginia jihad network, an American-born Muslim cleric was convicted on Tuesday of inciting followers to wage war against the United States just days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
After deliberating for seven days, the jury convicted the cleric, Ali al-Timimi of Fairfax, Va., on all six counts in the indictment, including counseling others to wage war against the United States and use firearms and explosives in furtherance of violent crimes. Timimi, who will remain under house arrest until sentencing on July 13, faces a mandatory life sentence under federal guidelines.
Timimi, 41, was described by federal prosecutors as a rock star among radical Islamists and the spiritual leader for a group of young men who trained to fight abroad for Muslim causes, including defending the Taliban against U.S.-led forces.
"By his treasonous criminal acts, he has proven himself to be a kingpin of hate against America and everything we stand for, especially our freedom," the U.S. attorney for eastern Virginia, Paul J. McNulty, said in a statement.
But Timimi's lawyers and supporters described him as an apolitical cancer researcher and part-time Quranic scholar who viewed himself as a bridge between his conservative Muslim sect and American society.
"We're obviously disappointed," said Edward MacMahon, Timimi's lawyer. "I'm going to do everything within the bounds of law to have this overturned."
Timimi is the 10th person convicted in the "Virginia jihad" case, in which a group of young men, several of them American-born converts, prepared themselves spiritually and physically for waging jihad in defense of Islam, prosecutors said, including by playing paintball in rural Virginia.
Prosecutors asserted that the training became far more serious than simply playing games. Three men who pleaded guilty in exchange for shorter sentences testified against Timimi, saying he told them at a private dinner on Sept. 16, 2001, that it was their Muslim duty to fight for Islam overseas, including by defending the Taliban against American forces.
The defense argued that Timimi had simply counseled his followers to take their families abroad after Sept. 11 to protect them against an anti-Muslim backlash. MacMahon also presented evidence that Timimi tried to stop two of the men from attending a training camp in Pakistan run by Lashkar-e-Taiba, a group allied with al-Qaida that is dedicated to ousting Indian forces from the disputed province of Kashmir.
MacMahon said he planned to file a petition to dismiss the verdict on the grounds that the prosecution failed to prove its case and that Timimi's words were protected under the First Amendment.
Groups that monitor Islamic fundamentalists in the United States described Timimi as an obscure but important cleric with a dedicated following in the United States, in Britain and in Australia. A scholar of Salafist thought, which advocates a strict adherence to traditional Islamic values, he lectured at Dar Al Arqam Mosque in Falls Church, Va., and disseminated many of his speeches on the Internet.
Many of those lectures dealt with lifestyle issues, like marriage between Muslims and non-Muslims. But in one message to followers that was introduced at trial by the prosecution, Timimi described the crash of the space shuttle Columbia in 2003 as a "good omen" for Muslims in an apocalyptic conflict with the West.
"This is a strong signal that Western supremacy (especially that of America) that began 500 years ago is coming to a quick end," Timimi said in the message.
Tamar Tesler, a senior analyst with the Investigative Project, a conservative group that studies terrorist organizations, said Timimi's exhortations "crossed the line of free speech" by advocating violence among followers who revered him.
"Until we take to task those who falsely use religion as a justification to achieve their goals," Tesler said, "there will always be new candidates who will believe it mandatory to commit acts of violence because a man they venerate tells them it is the will of God."
But civil rights advocates and Muslim American leaders raised concerns that Timimi's conviction would chill free speech among American Muslims, even among people who abhor Timimi's views.
"There is a view many Muslims have when they come to America that you could not be arrested for something you say," said Imam Johari Abdul Malik, outreach director at Dar Al Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church. "But now they have discovered they are not free to speak their minds. And if our opinions are out of vogue in the current climate, we feel we are all at risk."
Timimi was born in Washington, the child of Iraqi immigrants. A rotund, amiable man who speaks fluent Arabic and unaccented English, he wore dark suits and pressed white shirts to trial. His mother, a program manager for the Washington Department of Mental Health, was often in the audience.
He attended high school in Saudi Arabia, where he was deeply influenced by conservative clerics. But upon returning to the United States, he devoted much of his life to the study of science, receiving bachelor's degrees in biology and computer science and, later, a Ph.D. in computational biology -- used in gene sequencing -- from George Mason University.
A statement posted on a Web site run by Timimi's supporters compared him with persecuted Islamic scholars of the past. "As Allah said in the Quran: 'And they witnessed what they were doing against the believers. They had nothing against them, except that they believed in God, the Almighty, worthy of all praise!"' the statement said.