Top Stories

jm
MIAMI (CBS4) ― Of 34 people called for jury duty for the trial of the so called "Liberty City 7," only 10 potential jurors have been selected to continue in the selection process.

As the proceeding Tuesday began in the Miami courtroom of U.S. District Judge Joan Lenard, controversy was one of the first things on the court docket. At the start of the session, a piece of red cloth was put up to prevent prospective jurors from seeing the shackles on the defendants' ankles.

One of the defense attorneys, Albert Levin, objected, saying it would prejudice the jury, finding "something fishey" was going on. One of the defendants, Naseal Batiste, argued against the cloth, "because this makes people think we are dangerous." The judge agreed and had it removed.

Before the session began, there was a delay when one of the defense attorneys was called to the court's restroom.

The judge told the first pool of jurors, 36 in total, that the trial could take up to three months. She would allow time off for Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.

The process will continue until attorneys get about 55 jurors, and then they whittle the number down to 12 and 4 alternates who will decide whether the seven men on trial were trying to aide terrorists or just shaking down a man they thought was a rich Arab for money.

Among some of the jurors was a man from North Bay Village who owned a medical center. He said he could not serve because his business would be hurt. A woman accountant asked not to serve since her mother has terminal cancer with only six months to live. There were architects, kindergarten teachers, college professors, nurses, and a credit-union manager.

Some of the questions directed to the jurors consisted of their feelings of enforcement officials, wire taps, and secret recordings. The judge asked jurors if anyone had experiences in the martial arts, paintball or owned a weapon. Several answered yes, including a Hialeah police officer.

One prospective juror, an FIU student, told the judge that the very nature of the defendants' presence in the courtroom meant 'they must be guilty because they are here."

When Judge Lenard explained there will be a tremendous amount of news attention given this trial, and if people could avoid watching or reading those reports, an elementary teacher said she is very "nosey" and would not. A woman whose son serves in the military in Iraq said she reads and watches news reports every day.

Throughout the morning session, all of the defendants were in court but no family members were present.

Government prosecutors claim the group, captured last year, was a budding homegrown terrorist cell. Federal agents say they 7 men were plotting to blow up several buildings including the Sears Tower, the Miami Federal Courthouse, and the Miami FBI offices.

An undercover video shows defendant Batiste and others taking what prosecutors claims is an oath to the al Qaeda terrorist organization, as well as conversations in which Batiste tells an FBI undercover agent his plans for blowing up buildings. Aside from a a 9-millimeter handgun, no explosives or military weaponry necessary to pull off such a grandiose operation was ever found.

Defense lawyers say Batiste and his co-defendants were all talk and said whatever the government paid informants wanted to hear.

Last December, Batiste wrote a 25-page letter to CBS4 reporter Brian Andrews, in which claimed he and his group never had terrorist intentions, but instead were looking for money for their Liberty City religious organization.

Batiste writes the FBI put drugs in the food he and co-defendant Patrick Abraham were served by the FBI informant the night a surveillance tape was shot on which Batiste talks about blowing up the Sears Tower. He wrote that he's simply telling the informant what he wanted to hear, just so he could get money from him for their church.

"That's why you see me playing with tissue boxes talking about blowing up the Sears Tower. I made it up right then and there," he wrote.

On the surveillance tape Baptiste is heard talking about the Tower's weaknesses and where he would plant dynamite to take it down. He's also heard telling the informant he would need horses for an army of men to wage a war on the government in the chaos that would follow such an attack.

"If you listen to the words I was saying, it's unrealistic, such as I need horses," he wrote.

Batiste says he and his group were desperate for money, and that last September, a convenience store owner from Yemen offered assistance. He says the North Miami Beach shopkeeper, whom Batiste identifies as Abbas, teamed up with the feds to get help for his own financial and immigration problems by concocting the lies that led to Batiste and six others being arrested.

(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)