PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Lawyers for a man accused of planning a terrorist attack during an Oregon Christmas tree lighting ceremony is beginning to build its case during his trial's opening statements, saying he was the victim of a sophisticated manipulation by undercover FBI agents.
Defense attorney Steve Sady said Friday that Mohamed Mohamud was an impressionable 18-year-old who talked big about carrying out terrorism plots but had neither the means nor the experience to do so.
Sady says that changed when undercover agents posing as jihadist co-conspirators provided him with a fake bomb in November 2010.
Prosecuting attorney Pam Holsinger says Mohamud was on the path to radicalization, and it was only the FBI's intervention that prevented him from committing terrorism in the U.S. or abroad.
The trial continues Monday.
