By
ROXANA HEGEMAN | March 22, 2018 3:21 pm
Curtis
Allen is one of three men from western Kansas in federal court in Wichita on
October 14, 2016, charged with conspiring to detonate a bomb at an apartment
complex in Garden City, Kan., where Muslim immigrants from Somalia live and
worship. (Bo Rader/Wichita Eagle/TNS)Wichita Eagle/Tribune News Service
WICHITA,
Kan. (AP) — The plot to bomb an apartment complex housing Somali immigrants in
western Kansas was just the beginning of a plan by three militia members to
“exterminate cockroaches,” a prosecutor told jurors Thursday.
“Defendants
wanted to send the message Muslims are not welcomed here — not in Garden City,
not in Kansas, not in America,” prosecutor Risa Berkower said.
The
comments were made during opening statements in the trial of Gavin Wright,
Patrick Stein and Curtis Allen on charges of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass
destruction for allegedly planning to detonate truck bombs in the meatpacking
town of Garden City, 220 miles (350 kilometers) west of Wichita. Stein also
faces weapons-related charges and Wright has an additional charge of lying to
the FBI.
The
three men, who were indicted in October 2016, have pleaded not guilty.
Prosecutors
have argued the men formed a splinter group of the militia Kansas Security Force
that came to be known as “the Crusaders.” Wright is quoted in a wiretap
transcript as saying he hoped an attack on the Somalis would “wake people up”
and inspire others to take similar action against Muslims.
“The
evidence will show that these weren’t just words,” Berkower said. “These hours
of planning were not just talk. It was action.”
The
government plans to present evidence that the men manufactured homemade
explosives and tested them. It also plans to present testimony showing the men
tried to recruit other members of the Kansas Security Force to join them, and
warned them not to tip off law enforcement about the plan. Some militia members
will testify they didn’t like Muslims either but refused to join the plan to
kill people
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