NJ.com: Everything Jersey Wash. Twp. authorities twice arrested one suspect
Thursday, May 10, 2007
By Pete McCarthy
pmccarthy@sjnewsco.com
WASHINGTON TWP. In 2002, township police twice arrested one of the men charged this week with plotting to kill American soldiers at Fort Dix, but let him go despite the fact he was illegally in this country.
Police records show Eljvir Duka, 23, of Cherry Hill, got stopped by township officers on Feb. 8 and May 21, 2002, and taken into custody on outstanding warrants for traffic offenses from the New Jersey State Police.
There is no evidence he ever went to the county jail, which indicates he either posted some form of bail or was released on his own recognizance.
It was unclear Wednesday if he ever returned to court after those dates to answer the charges.
Police Chief Rafael Muniz said his officers are trained to confirm the identity of an individual taken into custody before he or she is released.
Although not familiar with Duka's past run-ins with township police, Muniz said that if a red flag pops up showing an individual might be in the country illegally, federal Immigration and Customer Enforcement officials are immediately notified.
That does not mean, however, that the individual will be picked up, Muniz said.
"If (ICE) or nobody wants them or are not interested in picking them up, we would have to release them," Muniz said. "Usually, what I've found is they only pick up the individuals if they are charged with an indictable crime. We're limited in what we can do. We would have to find out who they are before releasing them."
A spokesman for ICE said it is up to individual police departments to notify the federal authorities. He would not comment any further because of the nature of this particular case.
There was a $750 warrant out of Camden County at one time for Duka, but the reason was unclear other than that it was traffic related, according to information obtained by the Times.
A spokesman for the New Jersey State Police said he could not identify the underlying offense that led to the warrant because the department's records in 2002 were not electronically kept. A manual search would have to be done and that could not be completed on Wednesday.
Washington Township Prosecutor Robert Smith was unable to provide details on this case, including if Duka was ever taken to court.
Speaking generally, Smith said it was possible the man could have been released on his own recognizance if there was no indictable charge present.
"The county jail would probably be full of people and create all kinds of transportation problems if they couldn't post (bail) for a minor traffic offense," Smith said.
Duka, along with brothers Dritan, 28, and Shain, 26, were among five men in Federal Court on Tuesday facing charges they conspired to kill military personnel.
It is alleged they concocted a plan to attack Fort Dix and kill hundreds of soldiers using rocket-propelled grenades and various automatic weapons.
A sixth individual, Agron Abdullahu, 24, of Buena Vista Township, is charged with aiding and abetting their illegal possession of weapons.
The six men charged are all foreign born, but some were in the country legally. The Dukas were not.
All six men are currently being held without bail. They are due back in court Friday for a detention hearing.
If convicted, Duka and four of the others face life in prison. Abdullahu faces a 10-year sentence.
Fort Dix suspect 'normal' to others at local job
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
By Trish G. Graber
tgraber@sjnewsco.com
Until Tuesday, they appeared to live quiet lives.
Now the six men four with Gloucester County connections are accused of planning a foiled terror plot to kill hundreds of American soldiers at Fort Dix.
Agron Abdullahu, a bakery supervisor at the Williamstown ShopRite, and his family kept to themselves in the Collings Lakes neighborhood of Buena Vista Township.
At work, Abdullahu "jokes around and flirts with the girls," said co-worker Missy Stott, 23.
"He seemed normal to me," the Buena Vista Township resident said of Abdullahu, a Yugoslavia native charged Tuesday with aiding five men who planned to launch a mass murder of military personnel at Fort Dix.
"I would have never thought anything like this," Stott said.
But actions by the family, who never allowed the four children to hang out with neighborhood kids, and sounds coming from the home at all hours of the night, made the police presence at the house Monday night a little less shocking to neighbors.
"Something was going on," said neighbor Patti Eby, who said the family rarely spoke to her, but operated what sounded like power tools in their back yard through many nights.
Of the four children living there, Dana Baker, 24, had talked to Abdullahu's sister a few times, but never really got to know the girl, who she described as a "sweet" girl in her early 20s who used to talk to area kids in secret.
"She wasn't allowed to talk to anyone," Baker said. "Her mom would say we were all bad people."
While Baker questioned the family's rules, she never thought she would be standing outside the home, just hours after state and federal authorities launched a raid in connection with a planned terrorist attack.
The Abdullahus moved to the small Atlantic County community over five years ago. The family spent 212 months at Fort Dix in 1999. The base at the time housed 4,000 Kosovo refugees.
Their brick-front Cape Cod home, with plywood blocking the entrance to the tattered deck on the side of the house, didn't appear out of the ordinary; and just being anti-social did not raise alarm to residents of the working-class neighborhood off the Black Horse Pike.
Looking back, however, there was one particular incident at the home that should have raised red flags.
Last summer, Agron Abdullahu wanted to remove a tree stump in the front yard to make way for a boat.
Neighbors say he placed a stick of dynamite in the stump, rigged it to a lamp with extension cords that he plugged into an electrical socket inside the house. When he flicked the switch, the stump blew out of the ground, neighbors said.
Stott remembers Abdullahu's reaction when she mentioned it on the job.
"I was joking with him and I said, Well, at least I don't blow up tree stumps,' " Stott recalled. "He said, Don't ever say that again.' "
Now he is charged in an alleged plot with five men Mohamad Ibrahim Shnewer, 22; brothers Eljvir Duka, 23; Dritan Duka, 28; and Shain Duka, 26, all of Cherry Hill; and Serdar Tatar, 23, of Philadelphia.
Three of them are linked to Gloucester County.
The Duka brothers once owned a pizzeria in Washington Township.
"It was a rat trap," said Tony Giordano, who purchased the Shoppers Lane restaurant in June 2005, and renamed the former Duka's Pizzeria as Tony Soprano's. "Everything was beaten up. It was dirty."
Giordano suggested he was still interested in buying it, as it "had some potential."
"It's easier to open a pizzeria when you have an existing one," he suggested. He noted he remodeled the premises before reopening the facility.
Giordano said he "dealt" with brothers Dritan and Shain Duka for "a week, 10 days" before deciding to buy the pizzeria. A third brother, Eljvir, was on the premises on an occasional basis during the time, Giordano said.
What did he remember of the brothers?
"They had the Koran out on the counter all the time," Giordano replied. "They were ignorant to women. They did not seem business-oriented."
The Dukas operated the business for several years before selling it to someone "who could not meet the note," Giordano said.
"They took it back and put it up for sale almost immediately."
That's when Giordano became interested.
The men he negotiated a business deal with are now facing up to life in prison.
Shnewer, a cab driver in Philadelphia, and Tatar, a 7-Eleven worker in Philadelphia, face up to life as well.
Abdullahu, the apparent weapons trainer of the group, faces up to 10 years in prison, authorities said.
Carol Mitros, of Buena Vista Township, said while it is "scary" to have lived so close a significant part of the group for at least five years, she said people have to continue carrying out their daily routines.
"Where are you going to run to?" she said. "They're right next door."
Staff writer John Barna and Newhouse News Service contributed to this report.
Linear Mode
