Friend of San Bernadino killer faces gun and terror charges

A friend of one of the San Bernardino killers who murdered 14 people is facing charges including conspiring in previous planned terror attacks and making false statements when he bought the guns used in the California massacre.

The indictment by a federal grand jury avoids the need for a probable cause hearing before a judge to determine whether Enrique Marquez, 24, should stand trial on the five counts that could send him to prison for 50 years if he is convicted.

The counts include conspiring with gunman Syed Farook to carry out attacks in 2011 and 2012. Prosecutors said in court documents that Marquez and Farook planned to use pipe bombs and guns to kill people at the college they attended and to gun down others stuck in rush-hour traffic on a California freeway. But the plots fizzled out and they never acted.

Two more charges say Marquez declared in paperwork that two assault rifles he later gave to Farook were for himself only or his immediate family.

"Mr Marquez is charged for his role in a conspiracy several years ago to target innocent civilians in our own back yard with cold-blooded terror attacks, and with providing weapons to an individual whose end game was murder,"...