Fort Dix

Wiretaps obtained under a Patriot Act provision aimed at gathering foreign intelligence wrongly helped convict Muslim immigrants in a domestic criminal case, defense lawyers argued yesterday in U.S. appeals court in Philadelphia. The lawyers represent five young men convicted of plotting a deadly strike at Fort Dix, N.J. A federal jury in Camden convicted the men - Mohamad Shnewer, Serdar Tatar, and brothers Dritan, Eljvir and Shain Duka - in 2008 of conspiring to kill U.S. military personnel at Fort Dix. All but Tatar are serving life terms.

In the middle of the spectator section at Philadelphia federal court Monday sat Ferik Duka, whose three sons were among five men convicted in 2008 of plotting to kill U.S. soldiers at Fort Dix. As the Duka brothers enter the third year of their life sentences, their father listened as a three-judge panel heard nearly two hours of arguments for why the Fort Dix Five should, or shouldn't, get second trials. Nodding toward the table where a team of prosecutors sat, the senior Duka defended his sons.

It's an uphill battle, they privately concede, and given the evidence and tenor of the times, they are decided underdogs. But lawyers for the Fort Dix Five will get a chance Monday to convince a federal appellate panel that their clients' convictions should be overturned or, alternatively, that the five imprisoned terrorists should be granted new trials. The hearing is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia.

The Christmas letter was sealed with hope, sent to a son behind bars from a heartbroken mother who played a role in putting him there. "Dear Brian, I hope you never get this," Sue Aitken's card to her son, Brian, began. Aitken, 27, serving a seven-year sentence in New Jersey for possessing handguns he purchased legally in Colorado, might walk out of Mid-State Correctional Facility before the card arrives, though, after Gov. Chris Christie signed a letter yesterday commuting his sentence to time served.

Of all the memories Fred Connolly has of the Korean War, it is the killing of a 10-year-old girl that most haunts him. Connolly's Army unit had befriended the child and her family as it passed through their village. Soldiers gave them rations, candy, and cigarettes. When the GIs returned, they found three adults in the group dead and two toddlers crying next to their bodies. But it is the little girl that Connolly, of Turnersville, Gloucester County, remembers - especially on military observances such as Veterans Day - when he thinks back to his service.

There is an increased risk of forest and brush fires in the Philadelphia area because there has been no rain for two weeks, the National Weather Service says. The NWS has issued a fire weather watch for Wednesday afternoon through Wednesday evening, when temperatures will get up to 90 and wind gusts of 25 mph to 35 mph are expected. The watch covers Southeastern Pennsylvania, most of New Jersey and northern Delaware. Although there is the possibility of showers or isolated thunderstorms Wednesday morning, they will be brief and rainfall amounts will be less than a quarter-inch, the weather service says.

Against what most courtroom observers consider a legal long shot, lawyers for the Fort Dix Five filed a multipronged appeal Tuesday seeking to have the convictions of the jailed suburban terrorists overturned. The 149-page legal brief, citing many of the same arguments that were rejected by the trial judge in the case, was submitted as nearly two dozen family members and supporters of the defendants staged a noontime rally outside the federal courthouse at Sixth and Market Streets, where the Third Circuit Court of Appeals is based.

This is not the way Mahmoud Omar thought things would play out. Omar, the Egyptian-born FBI informant who was the key prosecution witness in the Fort Dix terrorism trial, is sitting at the kitchen table in his two-bedroom apartment trying to make sense of what has happened to him. He has an eviction notice for overdue rent, an application for welfare, a foundering export business, and an uncertain immigration status. The South Jersey apartment is sparsely furnished. There is little food in the refrigerator.

Incidents at separate gates caused officials to lockdown at the Lakehurst Navy base in Ocean County for about an hour Monday. The Lakehurst gates were closed from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m., said Airman Bryan Swink, a spokesman for the Naval Air Engineering Center of the Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst. Swink said the 87th Security Forces Squadron reported simultaneous "incidents" on the Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst. Security detained a delivery driver at one gate after he told them that he had a gun for personal protection.

As the wife of longtime Vincentown Mayor Robert L. Thompson, Helen Wills Thompson mostly stayed behind the town's political scene and did her own thing. Mrs. Thompson, 84, of Southampton, was a longtime trustee for the Sally Stretch Keen Memorial Library and the Harriet Irick Nursing Foundation, who helped out in various community organizations and events. Mrs. Thompson died at home Monday, May 31, shortly after attending the town's Memorial Day parade. After being the first lady of Vincentown for three decades, Mrs. Thompson loved going to every parade and big community event in the Southampton-Vincentown area.