3rd trial starts for 6 men accused of terror plot

MIAMI -- A group of Miami men accused of plotting to destroy Chicago's Sears Tower and other targets were alternately portrayed Wednesday as militants who sold out their country for money or poor construction workers duped by federal agents.

At the start of their third trial, the so-called "Liberty City Six" were again facing four terrorism-related charges each after two previous trials ended in hung juries.

Prosecutors said the men plotted terror attacks with an FBI informant they thought was an al-Qaida operative offering them money.

A defense attorney for the group's leader said the government's sting operation was a setup. The FBI's paid informants were motivated by money to manipulate the men and encourage them to take actions that could later be used against them, attorney Ana M. Jhones said.

"This case is a 100 percent setup. This is a manufactured crime," she said.

The men took an oath of allegiance to Osama bin Laden -- captured by the FBI on videotape -- led by an paid informant posing as a terrorism financier.

Group leader Narseal Batiste, 34, has previously testified he was never serious about any terror plots and was only playing along in hopes of getting $50,000.

There has been no evidence the men ever took any steps toward pulling off an attack. When they were arrested in 2006, the Bush administration trumpeted the case as an example of heading off terrorists early.

"What's relevant is their intention: What they wanted to do," Assistant U.S. Attorney Jacqueline Arango said.

Prosecutors said the men took photographs and video of possible targets in Miami, including the FBI building, a courthouse complex and a synagogue. In exchange, they wanted money to build what Arango described as their paramilitary group.

"They all agreed to sell out their country for money," Arango said. "The fact that they did so for the mighty U.S. dollar is no excuse."

Jhones said one of the informants tricked Batiste into taking the oath and encouraged him to make a list of weapons and equipment. She said video and audio captured by authorities would show two informants were in control and calling the shots, not Batiste.

The defense attorney said Batiste, a construction worker and father of four, repeatedly asked about money on the recordings, not terror attacks.

"You cannot buy your way to a conviction," Jhones said.

Other defense attorneys pointed to the lack of evidence in the case: no blueprints or maps of buildings, no bomb instruction manuals, no stashes of cash. This is a "manufactured case for the political and media purposes of the FBI and administration of the time," said Nathan Clark, who represents defendant Rotschild Augustine.

Albert Levin, attorney for defendant Patrick Abraham, said: "These people were never on anyone's radar screen before the injection of the informants."

The men each face 70 years in prison if convicted of four terrorism-related counts, including conspiracy to support al-Qaida and conspiracy to levy war against the U.S. The trial is expected to last at least two months.

The group became known by the name of their neighborhood of Liberty City, an impoverished area of Miami.