[4] In addition, they point to issues such as the ineffective assistance of their lawyers, the lack of impartiality of the judge, and the absence of explicit evidence of participation in the alleged plot.
[5][6] Mahmoud Omar, an FBI informant and key witness in the case later claimed that the Dukas were "people and good" and said the brothers were innocent.
[8] In the late 1980s, the Dukas abandoned life in Macedonia and moved to the United States as illegal immigrants and settled in Brooklyn in New York.
Dissatisfied with the situation, Dukas' parents moved into a small apartment in Cherry Hill, New Jersey where the brothers began to attend a mosque.
[16] A group of ten men[17] had recorded video footage of themselves shooting weapons and shouting Allahu Akbar ("God is great").
[14] US Attorney Chris Christie (later elected Governor of New Jersey) said that one of the suspects was able to draw a detailed map of Fort Dix from memory.
[23] Serdar Tatar even went to the police in Philadelphia to report that he was being pressured to provide a map of Fort Dix, and that he suspected a terrorist plan.
Agron Abdullahu (Albanian), Serdar Tatar (a Turkish legal immigrant), and Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer (a U.S. citizen from Jordan) held a variety of jobs, including as a taxi driver and clerk for 7-Eleven.
[14] One of the men in the Fort Dix plot was recorded on a surveillance tape commenting on a lecture by Anwar al-Awlaki, a prominent Muslim cleric of American and Yemeni citizenship, who went into hiding in Yemen after becoming radicalized in prison there during 2006–2007.
"[29] Agron Abdullahu, suspected of having the smallest role in the attack plot, accepted a plea bargain with a limit of 5 years in prison for his weapons offenses.
Their intention was to attack the U.S."[31] Prosecutors presented recordings of the plot obtained by two paid FBI informants during a 16-month undercover investigation, as well as suspicious videos that were found on one defendant's computer.
[2][3] Informant Mahmoud Omar confessed during the trial that two Duka brothers - Dritan and Shain - knew of no Fort Dix plot.
[6] On December 22, 2008, after 5 and a half days of deliberations, the jury found the plotters to be guilty of charges of conspiracy to harm US military personnel.
[39] Serdar Tatar is serving his 33-year sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution, McKean, a medium-security facility in Pennsylvania, and is scheduled for release in 2035.