Fort Dix jury ends second day with no verdict

Jurors in the Fort Dix case ended their second day of deliberations without reaching a verdict yesterday.

The jurors are deciding the fate of five foreign-born Muslim men accused of plotting an armed attack on Fort Dix. The anonymously chosen jurors heard eight weeks of testimony in the case, one of the country's biggest instances of alleged domestic terrorism.

The five defendants - Mohamad Shnewer, Serdar Tatar and brothers Dritan, Eljvir and Shain Duka - face life in prison if convicted of the most serious charges of conspiracy to kill U.S. soldiers and attempted murder. All five were raised in South Jersey, and prosecutors said they were inspired to plot an attack by jihadist videos and lectures downloaded from the Internet.

The defense argued the men never formulated any final plans - that they only talked tough about jihad - and they never intended to carry out an attack. The defense blamed two FBI informants, who recorded hundreds of hours of conversations, with goading the men along with radical talk about striking back at America.

- Troy Graham