Friend of California shooter indicted on gun, terror charges

Riverside (US): A friend of one of the two Pakistani-origin shooters in the San Bernardino massacre that killed 14 people has been indicted on charges that include conspiring in a pair of previous planned attacks and making false statements, authorities said.

The yesterday's indictment by a federal grand jury avoids the need for a probable cause hearing before a judge to determine whether Enrique Marquez Jr, 24, should stand trial on the five counts that could send him to prison for 50 years if he's convicted.

The counts include conspiring with shooter Syed Farook to carry out attacks in 2011 and 2012. Prosecutors said in court documents that Marquez and Farook planned to use pipe bombs and guns to kill people at the college they attended and to gun down others stuck in rush-hour traffic on a California freeway. The plots fizzled, and they never acted.

Two more counts allege that Marquez said in paperwork that two assault rifles he later gave to Farook were only for himself or his immediate family.

"Mr Marquez is charged for his role in a conspiracy several years ago to target innocent civilians in our own backyard with cold-blooded terror attacks, and with providing weapons to an individual whose endgame was murder," David Bowdich, the assistant director in charge of the FBI's Los

Angeles Field Office, said in a statement.

Two other counts accuse Marquez of immigration fraud for a sham marriage with a Russian woman who was the sister of Farook's wife.

Marquez had already been charged with the crimes in a criminal complaint filed December 17 before the charges were taken to the grand jury. He has not entered a plea but is expected to do so in an arraignment January 6. He was being held without bail.

A phone message left yesterday seeking comment from Marquez's attorney, Young Kim, was not immediately returned.

In a bail hearing December 21 for Marquez, Kim argued that Marquez should be credited for spending 10 days voluntarily talking to the FBI and pointed out that he is not charged with plotting the San Bernardino attacks, only with aborted attacks.

On December 2, 14 people were killed and more than 20 others injured in a terrorist attack in San Bernardino, California, by US-born American citizens of Pakistani descent Syed Rizwan Farook and his Pakistani-born wife Tashfeen Malik.

Malik was a lawful permanent resident of the US.