FBI agent: Boyd spoke of ‘jihad right here’

RALEIGH – Daniel Boyd told an informant that he would hurt or kill on U.S. soil if he was unable to leave the country to attack non-Muslims overseas, according to an FBI agent who testified Tuesday about a four-year investigation into Boyd’s actions.Federal agents seized 27,000 rounds of ammunition and more than two dozen guns from the Willow Spring man’s home and truck. Boyd, 39, and seven younger men, including two of his sons, are accused of plotting violence in support of terrorist causes.

“If I don’t leave this country soon, I’m going to make jihad right here in America,” FBI Special Agent Michael Sutton quoted Boyd as saying.

The information emerged in a daylong detention hearing Tuesday at the federal courthouse in Raleigh. Prosecutors and Sutton described Boyd, an American convert to Islam, as a zealot focused on enlisting others in his plot. They said he urged the group of younger Muslims to raise money and learn how to handle weapons to prepare for a violent jihad by insurgents and fighters overseas.

Supporters who crowded the courtroom cautioned that the accusations might be overblown. Jihad, literally translated as “struggle,” can be a more general call to oppose wrongdoing against Muslims, not necessarily through violence, they said.

“The word takes on a different perspective when the government uses it,” said Aly Hassan, the father of co-defendant Mohammad Omar Aly Hassan.

Audio recordings, obtained by a confidential informant and played in court, relayed a June talk at his home in which Boyd berated other Muslims for not rising up in the cause of Muslim brethren being killed in the Middle Eastern war zones. Boyd was also recorded at a Caswell County piece of land where he and other co-defendants are accused of gathering to fire armor-piercing ammunition, blasting through a metal plate.

“Just imagine what it could do if you shoot someone in a vest,” Boyd said, according to Sutton, who read from a transcript of the muffled recording.

Sutton testified that Boyd was at the center of a locally hatched plot to travel overseas and join terrorist causes. Boyd been on the radar of federal agents since 2005, Sutton said.

In the Raleigh courtroom

Outfitted in an orange jail jumpsuit, Boyd sat midway in the row of co-defendants, his hair pulled back in a ponytail and light brown beard reaching to his chest, a marked difference from the picture of a younger, mustachioed Boyd that’s been widely circulated since his July 27 arrest.

Neither Boyd nor any other suspects spoke at the detention hearing, which continues this morning. Also charged and present in the courtroom were Boyd’s sons Zakariya Boyd, 20, and Dylan Boyd, 22; Hassan, 22; Hysen Sherifi, 24; Anes Subasic, 33, and Ziyad Yaghi, 21.

An eighth man, Jude Kenan Mohammad, 20, is wanted but is thought by FBI agents to be at large in Pakistan, where he headed in October 2008 after leaving his Wake County home.

All but Sherifi are U.S. citizens. Sherifi is a citizen of Kosovo living in the United States legally, and he had planned on returning to Kosovo. Federal agents think he was going to embark on a violent mission; his defense attorney, Robert McAfee, said he was going to be with his pregnant wife.

The hearing, to determine whether the men should be released pending trial, became a stage for a tangle between faith and crime.

More than 100 spectators crowded into the brightly lit courtroom. U.S. marshals and courtroom guards scanned the crowd for sudden movements.

Supporters squeezed into hard benches, many of the women wearing head scarves. During breaks, many went to Sabrina Boyd, Daniel’s wife, and consoled her.

The men at the center of the investigation shuffled into court, restrained in ankle shackles and handcuffs, covered in bright orange jumpsuits. As they entered the courtroom, they turned to their friends and family, cupping their hands and pleading in Arabic for prayers of support.

The household arsenal

During the hearing, the defendants listened as Sutton described how Boyd was stockpiling ammunition and firearms, including a backpack he kept in his truck. The backpack was filled with several magazines of ammunition, according to Sutton. A cabinet in the entryway to Boyd’s home had two firearms inside, and agents also seized four gas masks.

Federal agents during the past several years recorded Boyd describing his interpretation of his Muslim duties. Most times, the audio was so muffled that courtroom spectators craned their necks to make out Boyd’s words.

At times, he ranted. Other times, he was calm, delivering a rhythmic sermon of sorts to a cluster of followers. He complained that his views on the militant duties of a Muslim were not welcomed in local mosques.

The talk is also coded at times, Sutton said. In one recorded conversation, Daniel Boyd referred to his sons as vehicles, Sutton said, comparing their speed and readiness to Land Rovers, Porsches and limousines. Weapons, Sutton said, are referred to as tools.

The government’s depiction of Boyd contrasted with what his friends, family and Willow Spring neighbors have described: a one-time Boy Scout troop leader who enjoyed chatting about gardening and was devoted to living a morally upright life.

For the defense

Defense attorneys who cross-examined Sutton argued that some suspects had tenuous ties to Boyd.

Yaghi and Hassan, for example, stopped dealing with Boyd after the two took a June 2007 trip to the Middle East. When they returned, rumors circulated around the local Muslim community that the young men wanted to join the violent jihad, Sutton said.

That trip had nothing to do with violence, Omar Hassan’s father testified. His son had been having problems with his girlfriend, Aly Hassan said, and had gone to see her in the Middle East with Yaghi in an attempt to reconcile.

Subasic hadn’t planned any travel outside the United States, nor did he attend any of the outings to the Caswell County land to practice shooting, said his attorney, Bridgett Aguirre.

Sutton also said, however, that Subasic spent $995 attending a training school in Las Vegas in February 2007 that discussed how to perform executions, beheadings and escape capture.

Court-appointed attorneys representing the seven men also took aim at the FBI agent’s testimony, pressing Sutton to describe any specific plots or targets.

Sutton struggled to identify who was the lead agent in the case. He couldn’t explain whom Boyd and his crew meant to target or whom they meant to kill. Sutton didn’t know what type of surveillance had been set up around the Boyd’s Willow Spring home.

“I don’t have any specific information about specific targets,” Sutton said.

U.S. Magistrate Judge William A. Webb will decide today whether the men should remain locked up, as prosecutors have requested, or be released pending their trials.

Staff writers Josh Shaffer and Gabe Starosta contributed to this report.

SEIZED FROM BOYD’S HOUSE