US prosecutors have claimed in court today that seven members of a religious sect plotted to blow up buildings and shoot survivors.
But defense lawyers told a federal court in Miami the defendants were merely trying to trick al Qaeda into giving them money.
The defense team insisted the case was a double confidence trick.
The lawyers argued that the accused feigned interest in carrying attacks in order to get money from a man who pretended to be an al Qaeda operative.
In reality the man was an informant who pushed the alleged plot along to get paid by the FBI
The defendants, known as the Liberty City Seven, after the Miami neighborhood where they lived, are accused of plotting to blow up the 108-story Sears Tower in Chicago and other buildings in the United States.
