Abdullah el-Faisal is the first person to face trial under state laws passed after Sept. 11. But he was not in the city when the offenses he is accused of took place
The New York Police Department’s target was 1,500 miles away and across the sea.
Abdullah el-Faisal, the man investigators wanted, had an international history as a promoter of extremism. He had been imprisoned in Britain for inciting hatred and soliciting murder before being sent home to Jamaica, where he established himself with a website and lectures. He had caught the attention of the department’s Intelligence Bureau after promoting jihad and encouraging the murder of Jews, Hindus and Americans.
None of the crimes New York prosecutors say he committed — which include spreading Islamic State propaganda and helping a woman who said she wanted to marry an ISIS fighter — occurred while Mr. Faisal was anywhere near the city. But in a Manhattan courtroom, Mr. Faisal, 59, has become the first person to go to trial under state laws adopted days after the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001 that made it a felony to give terrorists financial or other material support before an attack.
To make their case, New York investigators took on fake identities, chatted with Mr. Faisal via WhatsApp messages and Skype and even traveled to the Middle East. They established jurisdiction merely by communicating with Mr. Faisal from Manhattan.
Cyrus R. Vance Jr., who was the Manhattan district attorney when Mr. Faisal was indicted, said the far-flung investigation kept the city safe.
“Our defensive perimeter isn’t just the East River and the Hudson River,” Mr. Vance said. “This is someone who was inciting jihad who had the possibility of affecting the streets of Manhattan.”
But Mr. Faisal’s lawyers portrayed him as a big talker whose actions did not match his violent rhetoric and was swept up in a plan advanced by determined investigators. Detectives posed as militants and flattered Mr. Faisal, calling him “very smart” and referring to the United States as the “land of war” to win his trust.
“What the evidence will not show is that Mr. Faisal committed an actual act of terrorism,” said Alex Grosshtern, one of his lawyers, during opening statements.
Police Department officials did not respond to a request to discuss Mr. Faisal’s case, but the trial, which began in late November in State Supreme Court, reflects the priorities and ambitions of the agency and the district attorney’s office: They have seen Manhattan as a magnet for terrorists and, in initiatives all but unrivaled outside the federal government, assembled special teams to investigate and prosecute extremists.
Critics have said over the years that police intelligence officers — who typically operate in secret, do not wear badges or uniforms, and communicate with other officers only through handlers — have crossed boundaries.
In 2003, constitutional scholars and civil libertarians complained about a practice of collecting data about the politics of people arrested at antiwar protests. Undercover officers conducted covert surveillance of people in the United States, Canada and Europe who had planned to demonstrate at the 2004 Republican National Convention in Manhattan. And in 2011, the department came under widespread criticism for spying on Muslims in New York and New Jersey, prompting a federal judge to tighten rules governing intelligence operations.
“There is a question about the appropriate role of local law enforcement in creating what is essentially a shadow C.I.A.,” said Alex S. Vitale, a sociology professor at Brooklyn College who studies policing. He added that the question was particularly acute when the police are engaged in “international hunts that use up resources that the city could be using to address its own problems.”