Each week it seems as though there is a new salvo of accusations by the legal team defending Hillside 19-year-old Adel Daoud. On Tuesday, a court filing by Daoud's attorneys characterizes U.S. spy agencies as outlaw arms of the government that snagged the west suburban teenager in a dummied-up bomb plot. The nation's intelligence gathering agencies, they believe, are operating in what amounts to a fourth, runaway, branch of government.
Daoud was arrested a little more than a year ago, according to authorities planning to detonate a car bomb at this downtown intersection that would take out a popular nearby bar--if it was real. But the so-called plot was a sting operation and the bomb operatives worked for the FBI.
"Look, he's a young kid," said Daoud attorney Thomas Durkin. "He just graduated from high school."
Durkin, from the beginning, has cried foul about the government investigation and tactics.
In the sharply-critical Daoud surveillance motion filed Tuesday, Durkin states that the government has concocted a "fake choice between national security and civil rights, not unlike the fake war being conducted in our name against terror."
Durkin, a former assistant U.S. Attorney in Chicago, states that: "The usually reliable representations of the U.S. Attorney's office can no longer be trusted. . .because the intelligence agencies. . . simply do not inform the local prosecutors of all material information."
"The spy agencies," Durkin writes, "are as fearful of the prosecutors as they are defense counsel". . .and "just as easily compromised."
During the investigation, FBI agents secretly recorded phone conversations at the suspect's home, and elsewhere, and they monitored internet communications. Prosecutors have argued that evidence must be held in secret, from both the public and the defendant-- and so far, the courts have agreed.
Lawyers for the 19-year old man from west suburban Chicago are challenging the initial legal grounds permitting authorities to monitor his communications. They contend Daoud may have been targeted by intelligence agencies for viewpoints expressed on the internet.
The accused teenage jihadist remains in federal custody without bail, where he has been for 14 months. Authorities have said that Daoud made statements he intended to kill 100 people and injure 300. As his attorney continues a vigorous challenge of government tools and tactics, prosecutors declined to comment to the I-Team.
