US doctor pledged to al Qaeda for jihad-prosecutor
15 May 2007 23:00:46 GMT Source: Reuters
By Christine Kearney NEW YORK, May 15 (Reuters) - A Florida doctor accused of supporting al Qaeda pledged an oath to help the militant Islamic group "wage war against infidels," a federal prosecutor said in closing arguments at his trial on Tuesday. Prosecutor Karl Metzner told a jury in federal court in Manhattan that Rafiq Sabir took a bayat, or oath, to al Qaeda in a secret pact in May 2005 with his "brother in arms", New York Jazz musician and martial arts expert Tarik Shah. "They believed in their obligation to violent jihad, the obligation to what they felt was the Muslim duty to wage war against infidels," Metzner said, adding that both had long dreamed of helping al Qaeda, a group Metzner called "murdering terrorists who have vowed to destroy the United States." Sabir, 52, a practicing Muslim and emergency room doctor, faces up to 30 years in prison if convicted of two charges of supporting al Qaeda by taking the oath and agreeing to provide medical assistance to wounded al Qaeda fighters, including in Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Metzner told the jury that supporting terrorism was "not just about bullets and plastic explosives" but providing support in any specialty. "Terrorists with bullet wounds can't just walk into hospitals," Metzner said. "Al Qaeda needs doctors, doctors like Rafiq Sabir and Sabir knew perfectly well that they do." Metzner played the jury an audio tape of the oath taken at the 2005 meeting by Sabir and Shah with an undercover FBI agent who posed as an al Qaeda recruiter. During the trial Sabir testified he thought he was pledging a traditional oath to Islam and he did not understand the Arabic pronunciation of "al Qaeda" given by the undercover agent or that "Sheikh Osama" referred to Osama bin Laden. But Metzner said several months Sabir spent in Saudi Arabia showed he could understand some Arabic and told the undercover agent he could provide assistance to al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia. Shah, the central figure in the case, and two others charged have already pleaded guilty. Closing arguments will continue on Wednesday.
