By Joyce Kryszak
Lackawanna, NY – A conclusion is far from being written one year after a series of arrests in Lackawanna rocked Western New York, and the nation. Six young, Yemeni-American men pled guilty and will soon be sentenced for supporting al Qaida by attending a terrorist training camp. But a reward is still out for the arrest of another man who allegedly went with them. And trials are pending for three other Lackawanna men accused of running an illegal money transferring business.
A couple of men silently stack boxes while Mohamed Albanna answers the occasional ring of the phone at his Buffalo wholesale store in Buffalo. The Queen City Cigarette and Candy Company is only one of the locations still the target of ongoing investigations into what has become known nationally as the case of the Lackawanna Six. Albanna, who is a leader in the Muslim community, knows them all well. He says they're kids who made a tremendous mistake.
"The FBI and the U.S. attorney and everybody knows that these kids were duped," said Albanna. "They were never a threat and that's not from our perspective. The FBI has said from day one that they have never found any plan with these individuals prior to 9/11."
But that hasn't kept the nation's top attorney, John Ashcroft from recently calling the Lackawanna group a terror cell. And it hasn't stopped authorities from looking for more evidence. The investigation even snared Albanna. In December, Albanna and two other relatives were arrested for allegedly transferring money to their native country, Yemen. For legal reasons, Albanna didn't want to talk about the pending case, other than to say he had nothing to do with funding the men's trip. Albanna says he, or any Muslim leader, would have tried to stop them.
"If they would have asked the Imam or the elders that they were going to make a trip they would have been told, forget it," said Albanna. "It's not our faith, iot is not our way of life."
And Albanna says that's exactly what family members tried to tell his nephew, Jaber Elbaneh, when he said he wanted to move his family to Yemen. The fugitive, who has a $5 million reward on his head, is also accused of attending the al Qaida camp. But based on the size of the reward, federal authorities say they believe Elbaneh is a dangerous terrorist. His uncle says that's outrageous.
"Everybody in the community knows he is harmless. He couldn't even harm a fly, rather than an individual," said Albanna. "You can't just an individual as harmless as him and just make him dangerous to society."
Albanna says the man hunt, as well as the other men's plea deals, are the result of what he calls "political expediency." But according to U.S. Attorney Michael Battle, authorities are just doing their job.
"Our job is to bring individuals to justice and we take the evidence that we have and we present it to a Unites States grand jury, men and women such as yourselves, who consider the evidence and return an indictment," said Battle. "Plea agreements, plea resolutions of criminal activities are resolved everyday in this community, even as we speak."
Still, it's not only family members and other Muslims who are concerned about the actions of authorities in this case. The streets outside the Hyatt Regency where John Ashcroft spoke were lined with protesters earlier this week. Many of them were Lackawanna residents -- Muslim and non-Muslim alike.
Sister Monica Riordan has worked closely organizing inter-faith prayer and community building events in Lackawanna. She says people there are defensive of the men Ashcroft called a terror cell. Sister Riordan believes they were naive young boys, searching for ancestry and spiritual answers.
"If I were 22 and somebody came to me and said, 'I'll pay your way to Ireland and you can go to your roots and you can do the religious sights.' And then if they took me when I got over there to meet the people who were fighting. I wouldn't have stopped to think of the IRA as being as bad as now I recognize it is," Riordan said.
But the possibility for that kind of innocence in now gone in Lackawanna. Maneer Muflahi says the entire community is under constant scrutiny and surveillance.
"There's helicopters that fly over. There's people who are being questioned and harrassed -- people being subpoenaed," said Muflahi. "We're under a cloud of suspicion. We have to wear our patriotism on our sleeve."
When asked about the tactics, U.S. Attorney Battle didn't deny it's taking place.
"If people feel they are being threatened by law enforcement, they don't have to fear that at all," said Battle. "As you know, there is other criminal activity that, unfortunately, goes on in our community that may cause a surveillance of some activity geographically in this area. Those people in that community, nor any other community of Western New York, should feel threatened."
Mohamed Albanna says the community continues to support authorities with their investigation. They want anyone who is guilty of intending harm to this country brought to justice. But he says it's beginning to feel like a gaping wound that will never be allowed to heal.
"I think the community just wants to see this come to an end, because there's other problems that are facing, not only our community, but the community at large," said Albanna. "And we need to rebuild."
And Albanna says part of the healing needs to involve understanding what the young men were searching for. He says it's not enough to prosecute. Albanna says struggling Muslim youth need guidance to learn there is nothing incompatible between Islam and democracy.