Lawyers for a man charged in a mass shooting plot in downtown Milwaukee say their client refused to participate when urged by FBI informants they say harassed him for months.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that lawyers for 25-year-old Samy Mohamed Hamzeh claim entrapment in the case and have asked that Hamzeh be released from jail on bail pending his February trial.
Hamzeh was arrested in 2016 on two counts of possessing a machine gun and one count of possessing a silencer, which he bought from undercover FBI agents. Federal prosecutors allege he was planning to kill at least 30 people at a Masonic center to “defend Islam.”
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Federal public defenders say their client repeatedly protested the informants’ proposals and that he only wanted a legal handgun to protect himself.
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