Support for LAist comes from
Become a sponsor
Audience-funded nonprofit news
Donate
Stay Connected

LAist is part of Southern California Public Radio, a member-supported public media network.

Audience-funded nonprofit news
Listen
Donate
Podcasts Take Two
Defense claims suspected terrorist Mohamed Mohamud entrapped by FBI
solid orange rectangular banner
()
Take Two Logo
Jan 14, 2013
Listen • 6:30
Defense claims suspected terrorist Mohamed Mohamud entrapped by FBI
In November of 2010, a young Somali American man named Mohamed Mohamud was arrested in Portland, Oregon. He was charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction after allegedly trying to set off what he believed to be a bomb at a popular tree-lighting ceremony in Pioneer Square.
In this Nov. 27, 2010 file photo provided by the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office is Mohamed Mohamud. For more than two years, the only image the public has had of the man accused of plotting to detonate an 1,800-pound bomb at a Portland Christmas tree-lighting ceremony is this: A sullen-faced, sunken-eyed terrorism suspect in a mug shot taken just hours after his arrest. At the trial that begins Thursday, Jan. 10, 2013, Mohamud's attorneys will attempt to present a different image, one of an impressionable teenager lured by undercover agents with the FBI, which snared one of its youngest terrorism suspects with his arrest in November 2010.
In this Nov. 27, 2010 file photo provided by the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office is Mohamed Mohamud. For more than two years, the only image the public has had of the man accused of plotting to detonate an 1,800-pound bomb at a Portland Christmas tree-lighting ceremony is this: A sullen-faced, sunken-eyed terrorism suspect in a mug shot taken just hours after his arrest. At the trial that begins Thursday, Jan. 10, 2013, Mohamud's attorneys will attempt to present a different image, one of an impressionable teenager lured by undercover agents with the FBI, which snared one of its youngest terrorism suspects with his arrest in November 2010.
(
uncredited/AP
)

In November of 2010, a young Somali American man named Mohamed Mohamud was arrested in Portland, Oregon. He was charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction after allegedly trying to set off what he believed to be a bomb at a popular tree-lighting ceremony in Pioneer Square.

In November of 2010, a young Somali American man named Mohamed Mohamud was arrested in Portland, Oregon. He was charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction after allegedly trying to set off what he believed to be a bomb at a popular tree-lighting ceremony in Pioneer Square.

However, the bomb was a fake, given to him by undercover FBI agents. Now a federal trial is underway to determine his guilt. 

We speak to April Baer of Oregon Public Broadcasting, who has been covering this story.