May 20, 2022
A Lebanese-born Shiite living in New Jersey as a software developer was actually a “sleeper agent” planning how to carry out attacks on American landmarks if Iran was ever bombed by the US, prosecutors say.
Alexei Saab, 45, of Morristown, New Jersey, worked for Hezbollah’s Islamic Jihad Organization (IJO) from 2000 as “a terrorist and spy” scoping out potential terrorism targets in New York, Boston and Washington, DC, his Manhattan trial heard on its first day April 25.
Federal prosecutors allege Saab worked for technology companies as an engineer, keeping up appearances as a “normal” American citizen. But he was allegedly gathering intelligence information on national landmarks, tunnels and bridges, and photographing potential targets.
Saab while he was casing the Capitol building for a possible terrorist action.
He didn’t even bother to get out of his car since it was raining.
“On paper, he lived a normal life when, in reality, he was a sleeper agent for Hezbollah,” Assistant US Attorney Sam Adelsberg said during opening statements.
It has long been assumed that the Islamic Republic was using Iranian agents and Hezbollah agents to pinpoint potential targets in the United States to attack if Iran was ever attacked militarily by the United States. For example, some Iranian diplomats at the UN were expelled years ago when they were caught scouting out the two auto tunnels into Manhattan and the New York subway system. But this is the first time the federal government has actually charged anyone with laying out such attacks for Iran.
Saab has pleaded not guilty to charges including providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, conspiracy, receiving military-type training from a foreign terrorist organization, unlawful procurement of citizenship to facilitate international terrorism and citizenship application fraud.
He has not contested one charge against him—that of fraud for allegedly marrying a co-conspirator in 2012 in order to gain citizenship.
The most serious charge carries a maximum potential penalty of 25 years in prison.
Saab was arrested in July 2019. In court documents, investigators said Saab told agents he took photographs of buildings and locations including Quincy Market and the Prudential Center in Boston and the Capitol Building, Jefferson Memorial and the White House in Washington, DC.
The prosecution said Saab researched many targets, including Rockefeller Center, Grand Central Terminal, all three New York area airports, the Brooklyn, Triborough and George Washington bridges and the Lincoln and Holland tunnels connecting New Jersey to Manhattan, among other locations.
A video of Fenway Park baseball stadium in Boston was also recovered from one of Saab’s electronic devices.
The prosecution alleged that as part of his work, Saab sought “soft spots” in the targets that the organization could exploit to cause the most damage.
Saab’s lawyer, Marlon Kirton, said all the evidence in the case was from Saab himself and could not be considered reliable. Kirton also argued there was “no evidence as of today that Hezbollah has attacked people here in America.”
Saab reportedly joined Hezbollah in 1996 while he was a member of the Hezbollah student organization at the “University of Lebanon.” (There is no such university, but the prosecutors may have meant Lebanese University.)
In November 2000, Saab “lawfully entered the United States using a Lebanese passport” and became a naturalized US citizen in August 2008 after his marriage to a US citizen.