A man who described himself as a “patriot” confessed to placing homemade bombs in a Georgia park to help people realize “that this type of activity could happen anywhere,” according to court documents obtained by TPM on Tuesday.
Michael Conrade Sibley, a resident of Marietta, Ga. was charged last week in a federal court in Atlanta with attempting to damage federal property.
Documents filed in the case said Sibley built improvised explosive devices and left two of them in a backpack on Nov. 4 at the Vickery Creek Park in Georgia. The Park is part of the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area, according to the documents.
In an affidavit, FBI special agent Bridget Brock said Sibley was first interviewed by investigators on March 16. He then asked to meet with FBI agents again on March 20 at their Atlanta office and confessed, according to the documents.
Sibley told the agents he had googled how to make a bomb on his computer and constructed it in his garage, the documents said.
He said he purchased a backpack at a garage sale and, according to the documents, wrote the name “Mina Khodari” inside the backpack because he said “it looked foreign.”
Along with the bombs, Sibley put print-outs of the Atlanta Falcons’ schedule as well as public transportation timetables and the locations of Marcus Jewish Centers into the backpack because he thought officials would see those as “soft targets,” the documents said.
Sibley told the agents he also placed a copy of the Quran and a book titled “The Rape of Kuwait” in the bag.
Sibley said he placed the bombs in the park because he’s a “patriot.” He said he regretted that people weren’t “paying attention to what was going on (sic) the world” and he wanted to remind people “that this type of activity could happen anywhere,” according to the documents.
The documents did not say what originally led investigators to speak to Sibley.
Acting U.S. Attorney John Horn released a statement after the arrest, saying it “should reassure the community that serious crimes like this will be investigated thoroughly and all leads followed to identify the perpetrator.”
Read the complaint below:
h/t WSB
