Judge blocks feds from showing jurors bomb videos in Aws Naser terror trial in Detroit
Jurors in the terrorism trial of an accused Islamic State supporter from Westland will not be shown videos of FBI officials detonating bombs fashioned out of household items that the government said were similar to materials seized from the man's home, a judge ruled late Thursday.
U.S. District Judge Jonathan J.C. Grey said the fiery, slow-motion footage showing makeshift bombs destroying wood posts and shrapnel striking metal sheets have little probative value and the devices "are too dissimilar from the materials and conditions" found in Aws Naser's home to be helpful to jurors.
"...The court also finds that, whatever the probative value of the demonstrative videos might be, that probative value is outweighed by the unduly prejudicial effect that showing the requested videos to the jury would have," Grey wrote.
The order came several hours after a jury was seated in Naser's terrorism trial in federal court in Detroit. He is charged with two counts of attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and being a felon in possession of a destructive device. If convicted, Naser faces up to 20 years in federal prison on the material support charges and 15 years on the destructive device charge.
More: Feds want jurors to watch these bomb detonation videos in terror trial of Metro Detroit man
The order deprives prosecutors of key pieces of evidence that the government hoped would illustrate the bomb's destructive power and help convince jurors to send the 37-year-old Naser to prison for decades. The request to show jurors bomb videos followed a similar approach prosecutors used 14 years ago in the case of Nigerian terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the so-called Underwear Bomber convicted of trying to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009.
In Abdulmutallab's case, a government expert built a bomb out of components recovered from the plane and said he believed the device contained triacetone triperoxide, or TATP, an explosive favored by Islamic extremists and nicknamed “The Mother of Satan” for its devastating instability. Prosecutors said the three key ingredients of TATP — acetone, sulfuric acid, and hydrogen peroxide — were found at Naser's home.
In Naser's case, the alleged bomb parts were seized from his home and vehicle months after he was accused of downloading and watching a bomb-building tutorial from Ibn Taymiyyah Media Center (ITMC), a jihadi media group, according to the government.
Naser's lawyers, Amanda Bashi and James Gerometta, did not want jurors to see the videos.
"All told, the risk of unfair prejudice from the videos is extreme," the defense lawyers wrote in opposition to the videos. "The jury will not be able to unsee the mushroom clouds manufactured by the FBI."
The Naser and Abdulmutallab cases have a key difference, the judge noted.
The Abdulmutallab video that was allowed to be shown to jurors featured a replica bomb created based on a seized explosive device. The Naser replica bomb, however, was created based on an instructional video.
"...The devices in the videos allegedly were constructed by using the identical materials in the ITMC video and not the materials Naser possessed, some of which were not identical to those used in the test...," the judge wrote.
"...More importantly, the videos only show devices being detonated — they do not show the devices being constructed or what is in the devices."
rsnell@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Judge blocks feds from showing jurors bomb videos in Aws Naser terror trial in Detroit
