Defense: Agent coerced teen to violence

Published 5:00 am Sunday, May 8, 2011

PORTLAND — Defense lawyers for a Somali-American teen charged with trying to detonate a bomb at a holiday tree-lighting ceremony say a federal agent tried to coerce him into violence.

Attorneys for Mohamed O. Mohamud said in a filing Friday that e-mails from an agent known only as “Bill Smith” prove the teen’s innocence and show the federal government is not playing fair with the evidence it is supposed to provide.

“The correspondence between Bill Smith and (Mohamud) demonstrates that Smith was acting as an agent provocateur, attempting to encourage (Mohamud) to engage in violent activity in this country,” the defense team wrote.

Prosecutors had said in a filing April 7 that the e-mails did not relate to the facts of the case, and acknowledged that the agent was working for the government, but that the contact was brief.

Mohamud, now 20, has pleaded not guilty to charges of attempting to ignite a weapon of mass destruction at a Nov. 26 Christmas tree-lighting ceremony in Portland. The FBI has said that its agents were acting as his co-conspirators as part of a sting and that there was never a real explosive device.