http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=1531
by Scott P. Richert
On Wednesday, November 28, at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse in downtown Chicago, Derrick Shareef pled guilty in U.S. District Court on federal charges of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. Shareef had previously pled not guilty, and his trial had been scheduled to begin on December 10. He will be sentenced on March 14 and faces 30 years to life in prison. While the guilty plea brings his case to an end, the saga that his arrest kicked off has only just begun.
Shareef was arrested last December 8 in the parking lot of the Wal-Mart on East State Street in Rockford, when he attempted to trade a set of speakers for four hand grenades and a handgun from an FBI agent. For several months, he had been plotting an attack on CherryVale Mall, the largest mall in the Rockford area, during the height of the Christmas shopping season. The plot was foiled by a “confidential source” who alerted the FBI.
Immediately after Shareef’s arrest, but before the arrest was publicly announced, that same confidential source contacted Hassan Abujihaad, once a roommate of Shareef in Phoenix, Arizona. Federal authorities had long suspected that Abujihaad, a former Navy signalman, had transferred classified information concerning the movement of a naval battlegroup in the Persian Gulf to a jihadist website in the months leading up to September 11.Shareef’s arrest, and the recorded conversations of the confidential source and Abujihaad, provided the evidence necessary to obtain an arrest warrant, and Abujihaad was arrested on March 7 on charges of passing classified information. He has since been accused of plotting with Shareef to attack military-recruitment centers in Arizona and a military base in San Diego, California. He is scheduled to go on trial in federal court in New Haven, Connecticut, on February 25.
http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/?p=418#more-418…
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=1529
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=2009