Aziz Huq Discusses Newburgh Terror Case on "This American Life"
Episode 387 - Arms Trader 2009
The U.S. government spent two years on a sting operation trapping an Indian man named Hemant Lakhani, whom they suspected of being an illegal arms dealer. It's one of the first cases that went to trial in the War on Terror, and one the Justice Department pointed to as one of their big successes. In the end, they got Lakhani, red-handed, delivering a missile to a terrorist in New Jersey. The only problem was, nothing in the sting was what it appeared to be. Including the missile.
Prologue.
Host Ira Glass describes a recent terrorism case in Newburgh, N.Y., in which four men were arrested after planting bombs in front of a synagogue and Jewish community center. Ira discusses the case with Aziz Huq, assistant professor at the University of Chicago Law School and co-author of Unchecked and Unbalanced: Presidential Power in a Time of Terror. Huq says the Newburgh case isn’t what it seems, because without the help of a government informant, the four men probably wouldn’t have been able to organize an act of terrorism. The Newburgh case is part of a pattern of sting operations the government has undertaken since September 11th as part of its mandate to catch terrorists before they strike. The first big investigation to test this approach—the case of Hemant Lakhani—is the subject of today’s show.
Read more at This American Life