WICHITA, Kansas – Terry Lee Loewen made national news when he tried to blow up his car on the tarmac at Wichita’s Mid-Continent Airport.
Court papers show Loewen reached out to people he thought were Al Qaida. They walked him through the process of building a bomb and making the plan.
But those people were really FBI agents.
“He went forward, and he went forward right to the very end.”
Former FBI agent Daniel Jablonski says FBI agents are on the lookout for homegrown terrorism.
He also says it is very clear that FBI agents root out potential terrorists but do not entrap.
“You need to investigate and ask the questions. And our job was that of a fact finder,” said Jablonski.
Jablonski says court papers in the Terry Loewen case are clear.
It appears Loewen had the intent to do harm to a lot of people.
He says the FBI just got to Loewen before he found somebody else.
Attorneys say entrapment defense likely on tap for Loewen.
“For there to be entrapment, two ingredients are necessary. One, government inducement. Two, no predisposition by the accused to commit the crime,” said Dan Monnat, legal analyst.
Monnat says entrapment could certainly be argued.
Those who have gone after potential bad guys with the FBI say it appears the government has put together a pretty solid case against Loewen at least so far.
“We were not making judgements but to obtain the facts.”
KSNW TV