FBI informant grilled in Fort Dix trial

CAMDEN, N.J., Nov. 18 (UPI) -- An FBI mole who infiltrated an alleged terror group says he never saw the defendants have any strategy sessions to attack the Fort Dix U.S. Army base.

Federal prosecutors say the five men, including three immigrant brothers from the former Yugoslavia, bought automatic weapons from the informant, Mahmoud Omar, as part of a plan to attack Fort Dix.

But defense attorneys, questioning Omar for a sixth day on the witness stand in a Camden, N.J., courtroom Monday, say he goaded the defendants at the behest of authorities into a plot they never intended to carry out, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

Attorney Rocco Cipparone Jr. forced Omar to admit that he never had terror attack strategy sessions with the men, never conducted any serious training sessions, that they never reviewed maps of Fort Dix nor did they ever do any kind of reconnaissance of the base, the newspaper said.

Cipparone contends Omar, an Egyptian national, agreed to set up the men in order to remedy his own legal problems and to gain $240,000 in FBI payments.

All five defendants are foreign-born Muslims who grew up in Cherry Hill, N.J., and are facing possible life-in-prison sentences, the newspaper said.