It was faster than you can say “unindicted co-conspirator.”
A Brooklyn jury took almost no time to decide Curtis Sliwa did not libel an imam who sued the Guardian Angels founder for $5 million over televised comments he made that members of the imam’s mosque had taken guns into Canada.
Sliwa said on the stand yesterday that he once respected Siraj Wahhaj, but his opinion of the Bedford-Stuyvesant imam changed when the cleric supported the 1993 World Trade Center bombers. Wahhaj was identified by US Attorney Mary Jo White as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in that attack.
“The Gottis tried to kill me twice and it never shut me up,” a beaming Sliwa said after the verdict. “The imam tried to sue me for much more money than I’ll ever have. This is a much better way. It’s more civil.”
During the two-day trial, Wahhaj accused Sliwa of smearing him during a televised panel discussion in March 2003, when he said members of the imam’s mosque had trafficked guns to Canada.
But the jury didn’t buy it for a second, according to juror Jacqueline Lopez, 43.
“We sat down,” she said. “We all said at one shot, ‘No.’ ”
Lopez called the trial a “waste of time.”
“Nothing happened to him,” she said of Wahhaj.
As she left court, Lopez asked Sliwa for a hug and said, “I love you guys.”
Sliwa said the televised statements came during a heated debate about how anti-terrorism agents should conduct surveillance at three suspect mosques in Brooklyn.
Sliwa testified that Wahhaj came to him in the late 1980s seeking guidance on how his mosque-run community patrol group could combat drug gangs without the use of weapons.
At that time, several members of the group told Sliwa that men who carried illegal guns on patrol had taken their weapons “on vacation” to Canada to hide from the law.
“I respect the process,” Wahhaj said following the verdict. “I disagree with the outcome. I’m not mad at anybody. I’m not upset.”