No bail for friend of San Bernardino terrorist

Enrique Marquez – who was arrested Thursday for allegedly providing material support to terrorists – moved to Riverside, California, around 2005, and shortly after he met his next-door neighbor, Syed Farook, according to the criminal complaint released by the Department of Justice.

Farook and his wife were killed in a police shootout hours after the shootings.

Wearing handcuffs and beige T-shirt, Marquez appeared in federal court in Riverside, California for a brief hearing on Thursday.

Federal agents said Marquez admitted to planning an attack with Farook at Riverside Community College in 2011.

“My neighbor. He did the San Bernardino shooting”, Marquez told the 911 operator.

The difficulty of being armed for self-defense in California makes that state a viable choice for such an attack, and it should also wake Californians up to the danger they face because of the endless gun control regulations Democrats have heaved upon them.

However, she added: “His prior purchase of the firearms and ongoing failure to warn authorities about Farook’s intent to commit mass murder had fatal consequences”. After that year, prosecutors said, Marquez distanced himself from Farook and ceased plotting with him.

Authorities said that on the morning of the assault in San Bernardino, Malik searched social media for information related to the Islamic State group, which has hailed the attack but stopped short of claiming it.

A post appeared “on a Facebook page associated with Malik” declaring her allegiance to someone whom investigators believe is the current leader of ISIS.

“The [expletive] [expletive] used my gun”, he said.

Details are emerging of Marquez and his relationship to the killers.

Marquez, a former licensed security guard, was working at a Riverside bar at the time of the shooting and is not alleged to have had a role in the attack.

He was described as both impressionable and the type who “couldn’t fight his way out of a wet paper bag”, the owner of a bar where he used to work told the Times.

In interviews over 11 days, Enrique Marquez Jr. willingly told agents how he and Farook had planned to slaughter students at a community college they attended and massacre motorists on a gridlocked freeway, according to court documents. The affidavit states that the men decided Marquez should purchase the weapons because it would be less suspicious, although Farook gave Marquez money for the weapons.

By late 2011, Marquez was spending most of his time at Farook’s home, where he read Inspire magazine, an official publication of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula; watched videos produced by al-Qaida’s affiliate in Somalia; and studied radical material online. In their plan to attack Route 91, they discussed throwing pipe bombs into the road to stop traffic, the Federal Bureau of Investigation alleges.

Ramos also scoffed at criticism the president took too long to touch down in the tragedy-stricken city.

The pair later scrapped their plans, partly because of the arrests of several other suspects on terrorism charges during that period.

Marquez also is charged with illegally buying the rifles the shooters used in the San Bernardino attack and visa fraud stemming from his marriage to a Russian woman that prosecutors say was a sham.

During a court appearance Thursday, Marquez said that he understood the charges against him.

Marquez is being held without bail and has not entered a plea in the case.