Somali-American man guilty in Oregon Christmas bomb plot

A Somali-American man was found guilty on Thursday of trying to blow up a Christmas-tree lighting ceremony in Oregon using a fake bomb supplied to him by undercover agents posing as Islamist militants, the public defender's office said.   

Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a naturalized U.S. citizen and former Oregon State University student, faces a possible life prison term on his conviction on a single charge of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. Sentencing is set for May 14.   

Mohamud was arrested shortly after attempting to use his cell phone to remotely detonate an artificial car bomb planted near a Portland square crowded with thousands of people attending the ceremony the day after Thanksgiving in 2010.   

No one was hurt, and authorities say the public was never in real danger.   

During a three-week trial in U.S. District Court in Portland, defense attorneys argued that overzealous law enforcement officers posing as al Qaeda militants invented a crime and entrapped their client.   

But the jury agreed with the prosecution's argument that Mohamud, 19 years old at the time of the crime, was already radicalized and could have backed out of the bomb plot at any point.   

On the morning of the planned bombing, Mohamud reportedly told a friend that it was "the greatest morning of my life." Hours later, he dialed a cell phone that he thought would trigger the bomb and kill thousands of people.    

"Mr. Mohamud made a series of choices over a period of several years - choices that were leading him down a path that would have ended in violence," Greg Fowler, the FBI's special agent in charge of the Portland division, said in a statement.   

"His actions showed little regard for the rights and responsibilities that come with being an American or respect for the lives that he was prepared to take," he added.


REUTERS