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Suspects in terrorism case admit to lying about hit list
ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Jul 21, 2010 (McClatchy Newspapers - McClatchy-Tribune News Service via COMTEX) --
An Alaska husband and wife pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday to lying to the FBI about an assassination list created by the husband to revenge alleged crimes against Muslim civilians.
The domestic terrorism case against would-be jihadist Paul Gene Rockwood Jr., a convert to Islam from Virginia, and his British wife, Nadia Piroska Maria Rockwood, is set to unfold Thursday afternoon before U.S. District Judge Ralph Beistline.
According to plea agreements filed Wednesday morning by the U.S. Attorney's office, Paul Rockwood will enter a guilty plea in exchange for an eight-year sentence for lying to federal officials in a domestic terrorism case.
Until recently, Rockwood, 35, worked as a meteorological technician for the National Weather Service in King Salmon, Alaska.
His wife, Nadia Rockwood, 36, who is charged with lying but not with terrorism, will get five years' probation, which she can serve in the United Kingdom. The Rockwoods have a 4-year-old child, and she is five months pregnant in a "high-risk pregnancy," according to papers filed by her appointed attorney, Jim Wendt of Anchorage.
The couple, who have not been in custody, appeared at the federal courthouse in Anchorage at their hearings Wednesday afternoon.
Both are scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 23.
According to charging documents and their plea agreements, Paul Rockwood converted to Islam in Virginia in last 2001 or early 2002. He soon became an adherent of the radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born jihadist who met with some of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists before they hijacked their planes. Al-Awlaki has solicited jihadists over Internet sites, and that's how Rockwood came to know his ideology, according to the plea agreement.
"Rockwood became a strict adherent to the jihad-promoting ideology of cleric Anwar al-Awlaki," according to the plea agreement. "This included a personal conviction that it was his religious responsibility to exact revenge by death on anyone who desecrated Islam."
The Rockwoods moved to King Salmon in 2006. Wendt said the National Weather Service provided the move.
According to a Weather Service newsletter posted online, Rockwood came to King Salmon in 2006 from Bangor, Maine, to work as a meteorological technician.
It was there, according to charging documents, that Paul Rockwood developed a list of some 15 people that he targeted for assassination by mail bomb or gunshot. The charges accuse Nadia Rockwood of delivering the list to someone in Anchorage in April, but the recipient isn't named.
The couple were interrogated by the FBI on May 19 and denied knowing the purpose of the list or who drew it up, leading to a single count of lying to a federal official, a felony. The charge carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, but with the domestic terrorism component, the penalty rises to 8 years in prison.
Prosecutors said the couple can't afford a fine.
Until May, Rockwood worked as a technician for the Weather Service and lived in government housing in King Salmon, said Debra Elliot, an official with the service there. His job included observing the weather and writing short-term forecasts, she said.
"He was a good employee. I didn't have any problems with him," she said.
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(Kyle Hopkins of McClatchy Newspapers contributed to this report.)
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(c) 2010, Anchorage Daily News (Anchorage, Alaska).
Visit the Anchorage Daily News online at http://www.adn.com/
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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