Jordanian man to plead guilty to Texas bomb plot
DALLAS, TX
Hosam Smadi, 19, agreed to plead guilty in a deal with
prosecutors to attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction. The
charge is punishable by up to life in prison, but U.S. District
Court Judge Barbara Lynn wouldn't be allowed to sentence Smadi to
more than 30 years if she accepts the deal. She scheduled a new
arraignment for Smadi on Wednesday.
The agreement was signed by Smadi on Thursday but filed in
federal court in Dallas on Tuesday.
Defense attorneys and the FBI declined comment, and a
spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office did not return a message
Tuesday night.
Smadi has admitted leaving what he thought was a truck bomb in a
garage beneath the 60-story Fountain Place building in downtown
Dallas in September. The device was a decoy provided by FBI agents
posing as al-Qaida operatives.
Smadi acknowledged in a written statement that he parked the
truck in the garage beneath the skyscraper, activated a timer
connected to the decoy, then rode with an undercover agent and
waited to watch the explosion.
Smadi also admitted using a cell phone to detonate what he
thought was the bomb, according to his signed statement. Instead,
the phone rang an FBI number and Smadi was arrested.
"Smadi believed this was an active weapon of mass
destruction," according to the statement. "Smadi believed the
bomb would explode and cause extensive damage."
The FBI said it had been monitoring Smadi after discovering him
on an extremist website last year. Investigators said he acted
alone and was not affiliated with any terrorist organizations.
In court papers, Smadi's federal public defenders have argued
that their client exhibited signs of depression and mental illness
when his parents separated and that he "completely fell apart"
when his mother died of brain cancer.