Michigan authorities yesterday said that they foiled a bombing attempt of a suburban Detroit mosque, last week.
Police said they arrested Roger Stockham, who had alledgedly driven from California and parked outside the Islamic Center of America with a trunk full of fireworks.
Stockham was arraigned Wednesday on one count of making a false report or threat of terrorism and one count of possessing explosives with an unlawful intent. Dearborn police Chief Ronald Haddad said Stockham had a large but undisclosed quantity of class-C fireworks including M-80s, which are outlawed in Michigan.
According to Reuters, the Islamic Center of America is a “70,000 square-foot facility that can accommodate 1,000 people.” At the time Stockham was arrested, about 500 members were gathered for a funeral service.
The Detroit News reports that the 63-year-old Stockman was a veteran of Vietnam and had served time for threatening to kill President George W. Bush.
The paper reports:
Before the arrest, Stockham called a local paper twice to say he was going to explode bombs in the neighborhood. In one call, he identified himself as “Hem Ahadin,” saying he was “a local Muslim terrorist on a roll.” He ranted against the VA, the FBI and Bush, largely because of the things the president had said about Iraq in a speech earlier in the week.
Stockham apparently threatened to harm the mosque at a Detroit bar. A bar employee wrote down his license plate number and called police. Copyright 2011 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.
