Prosecutors say Mehanna supported terrorists; defense cites freedom of speech

By Milton J. Valencia and Martin Finucane, Globe Staff

A young man from Sudbury answered Osama bin Laden’s call to arms, seeking terrorist training in Yemen, then becoming a propagandist for Al Qaeda in 2006 from his “cushy“ suburban home, a federal prosecutor said today.

Tarek Mehanna of Sudbury “began translating jihad material ... material that would encourage others to participate in jihad, which was itself a service to Al Qaeda,” federal prosecutor Aloke Chakravarty said in opening statements at Mehanna’s trial in US District Court in Boston.

But Mehanna’s attorney, J.W. Carney Jr., displaying pictures to the jury of a young Mehanna playing guitar and sitting on Santa’s lap, said his client was “a young man his mom could be very proud of.”

He acknowledged that his client, who had grown more interested in his Muslim background, was angry about the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

But he told the jury Mehanna shouldn’t be punished for his views. “I’m not here to convince you to believe that his view and the view of millions of others was correct. ... I am asking you to find that you can hold that view in the United States of America even if the government does not want you to hold that view.”

“We can hold onto these views, and we can speak them, even if it’s what upsets the United States government,” he said. “It’s what makes the United States so great, so strong, and so free.”

Mehanna, 29, a popular young leader in the area’s Muslim community who received a doctorate from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, faces life in prison if convicted on charges of conspiring to support Al Qaeda and to kill in a foreign territory and of lying to FBI investigators.

Prosecutors say he traveled to Yemen in 2004 in search of terrorism training. He did not succeed in finding it, but he allegedly returned determined to help Al Qaeda by translating Arabic texts promoting violent jihad and distributing them to others on the Internet.

One of the documents translated by Mehanna was “39 Ways to Make Jihad,” Chakravarty said in his opening statement. “This is essentially training material to get ready to serve and participate in that fight,” Chakravarty said.

As for the defense argument that Mehanna was exercising his free speech rights, Chakravarty said, “This case is not about what the defendant believed, whether he was against the war, whether he didn’t like America. .... What you can’t do is something the law forbids ... and that’s why he is in this courtroom today.”

Chakravarty also showed a picture of Mehanna taken during a visit to Ground Zero, in which Mehanna is striking a happy pose. “He was going to celebrate what happened on that day,” Chakravarty said.

Carney, the defense lawyer, countered that Mehanna had gone to Yemen not to join terrorists, but to study. Mehanna was interested in 15th-century Arabic law and wanted to learn pure Arabic, Carney said.

As for Mehanna’s translation of jihadist documents, Carney said, “He wanted others to understand the point of view, so he translated documents.”