For two weeks, as his brother stood trial on terrorism-related charges, Avni Osmakac watched in silence. But days after the jury delivered a guilty verdict that could put his brother in prison for life, Osmakac is speaking out about what he says are the FBI’s unfair tactics.
From his family’s small bakery and grocery store in St. Petersburg, Osmakac said Thursday that his younger brother Sami was “brainwashed” by undercover FBI agents and an informer who received money from the government for his role. Before he met an odd cast of characters and became estranged from his family, Sami Osmakac was a lost and isolated young man who had only a vague interest in Islam, his brother said. By the time of Sami’s arrest in 2012, he was spouting extremist rhetoric and purchasing weapons from an undercover agent.
“Everything my brother said on these videotapes, that’s not my brother, that’s a creature made by the government,” said Avni Osmakac, 30.
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