Hello Muddah,
Hello Fadduh,
Forget Camp Granada,
I’m here at Camp Jihada.
Sometimes perfectly innocent activities look fishy, right? But jihad to get in shape?
Yep. That is what the defense is claiming for two Virginia men on trial for allegedly belonging to a jihad network who trained in a terrorist camp in Pakistan.
The judge will decide guilt or innocence, but I feel that the defense attorney deserves a medal for presenting the most audacious case ever presented with a straight face (assuming he managed to keep a straight face).
As the Washington Post described it yesterday, John K. Zwerling, an attorney for one of the fitness freaks, ‘said his client went to the camp in 2001 purely to hike and climb mountains, though he acknowledged that his client fired a weapon there.
”Bizarrely enough, that was his kind of fun,’ Zwerling said. ‘When you think of a terrorist camp, you think of [Osama] bin Laden. There were no lessons on building bombs or booby traps or any type of terrorist weaponry. It was the kind of weapons soldiers use when they fight other soldiers.”’
I’m already picturing DA Jack McCoy’s incredulous expression when this case makes it onto Law & Order!
Six men charged in connection with the alleged Virginia jihad group have, by the way, pled guilty, and five have testified in the trial. The charges against one were dropped.