WICHITA, Kan. (AP) – The Latest on three men accused of plotting to bomb a Kansas apartment complex housing Somali refugees (all times local):
3:30 p.m.
A man accused of planning to bomb a Kansas apartment complex that houses Somali refugees says he was unaware his co-defendants intended to carry out the attack.
Gavin Wright made the argument in a court motion filed Wednesday that offers the first details at his defense strategy.
His attorney filed the 93-page document during a hearing where she asked that Wright be released pending trial. The judge hasn’t ruled on the request.
Wright and co-defendants Patrick Stein and Curtis Allen are charged with conspiring to detonate truck bombs at an apartment complex in Garden City, a meatpacking town about 200 miles (322 kilometers) west of Wichita. They’ve pleaded not guilty.
Wright’s motion is redacted, but it portrays Wright as a lonely man desperate to find friends after moving to rural western Kansas. It contends Wright believed the talk about surveillance of the Somali Muslim refugee community was only hyperbole.
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10:30 a.m.
Federal prosecutors are appealing a judge’s decision to throw out a firearms charge against a man accused of plotting to attack Somali immigrants in a meatpacking town in western Kansas.
U.S. District Judge Eric Melgren in August dismissed a firearms charge against Curtis Allen along with evidence upon which that charge is based.
The government appealed that ruling Tuesday. Prosecutors contend that the evidence is substantial proof of a material fact in the case.
Allen and co-defendants Patrick Stein and Gavin Wright still face charges of conspiring to detonate truck bombs at an apartment complex in Garden City where Somali immigrants live. All three have pleaded not guilty.
The U.S. attorney’s office said Wednesday that prosecutors do not expect the appeal to delay the Feb. 20 trial.
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