For Ayyub Abdul-Alim, it has been nearly two-and-a-half years since he’s had a normal day.

On Dec. 8, 2011, he was a Springfield resident working as the building manager of an apartment complex, operating two businesses and organizing a community prayer center. He lived with his wife and her son. The following day, Abdul-Alim was arrested by Springfield police officers on gun charges.

After closing Natures Garden, his store at the corner of Hancock and State Streets, Abdul-Alim said he received a call from his wife on Dec. 9. “She asked me to bring some milk home for her son.”

Once the store entrance was bolted for the evening, Abdul-Alim walked 220 feet to Day & Nite Convenience, where he saw a white Cherokee Jeep with a Springfield police car parked behind it. “I didn’t think anything of the police car. There’s crime in the neighborhood, so police are often around,” Abdul-Alim said in a recent interview.

Minutes before, Springfield police officers William Berrios and Anthony Sowers were asked by dispatch to locate and identify the driver of the white Jeep, which was pulled over in the parking lot.

The dispatch was requested by city police officer Ronald Sheehan, who said he’d received information from a confidential informant that the car was going to be involved in a narcotics investigation. "I was investigating numerous individuals in that area of which one of the subjects of the investigation was Mr. Abdul-Alim,” the 25-year veteran of the force said during a voir dire hearing in August.

As Abdul-Alim approached the area of both the store and the officers, Sheehan said the guy in the red jacket approaching had a firearm on him, Sowers said in court documents, referring to Abdul-Alim.

After requesting he put his hands in the air, Sowers said he and Berrios each grabbed one of his arms, and Sowers detained him. “[Sheehan] said that this guy had a firearm,” Sowers said. "We weren’t going to take any chances, so I placed the handcuffs on him in order for him to not be able to use that firearm against me or anyone else.”

Sowers then patted down Abdul-Alim, and said he did not have a weapon on him, when asked over the radio by Officer Sheehan, who was in an unmarked vehicle down the block.

After asking Sowers, who was in earshot of Abdul-Alim to step away, Sheehan recommended they check his underwear.

A second search by Sowers had the same outcome.

Over the radio, Sheehan insisted the information was from a reliable source, and requested another pat down.

Berrios did the final search. “I could feel something in there, I put my hand down the front [of Abdul-Alim’s pants], I could feel a weapon,” he said during a pretrial hearing. “I said, ‘He has a weapon, weapon, gun.’”

On why his partner didn’t feel a weapon, Berrios said of his search, “I just think it wasn’t adequate.”

In a discrepancy with what his partner said, Berrios testified that at this point Abdul-Alim was handcuffed before he was placed in the cruiser. Inside the marked car, Berrios said he unzipped Abdul-Alim’s pants and said he found a “small handgun, .22-caliber handgun” with nothing in the chamber but six rounds in the magazine.

Moments after Sheehan was advised a weapon was found, Berrios said Sheehan pulled up to the scene.

In a complaint filed against the three officers, Abdul-Alim disputes the timeline. Following a second search of his person, he said he was placed in the back of the police car, on the directive of Sheehan. Prior to Berrios’ search, he wrote in the complaint,

The driver of the white Jeep was let go while Abdul-Alim was taken to holding.

At the Springfield police station, Abdul-Alim said an FBI agent requested to meet with him. “When I came in, he shakes my hand and says 'Mr. Alim’ - and I’ll never forget this because it’s wild - 'Mr. Alim, I’m sorry we have to meet under these circumstances. You might recall I called you about a year ago and you refused to meet with me.’ So he was, like, letting me know, like, I’m the guy that was calling you and you refused to meet with me. But now I’ve got you and you have nowhere to go and you’re going to cooperate with me or do 15 years,” Abdul-Alim said during an interview on Wednesday.

"He asked me then if I would cooperate,” Abdul-Alim said. The problem with becoming an informant, he said, was the method. “They wanted me to go into the Muslim community, engage in conversations to incite anti-government propaganda and violence so that I can entrap individuals. And that I wasn’t going to do."

For the last 28 months, Abdul-Alim has thought obsessively about that day. Since his arraignment three days following his arrest, he has been held in the Hampden County Correctional Center in the medium security facility. Working with his attorney Thomas E. Robinson, Abdul-Alim has strategized his defense, reached out to local activists, and questioned his decisions leading up to his arrest.

Settling in Springfield

Soon after moving to Springfield eight years ago Abdul-Alim became the property manager for a block on State Street, including the an apartment complex at 683 State Street.

“I was looking for a storefront in the city and I met the owner of the building,” Abdul-Alim said in a recent interview. When he expressed interest in leasing the vacant store at the corner of Hancock and State Streets, the owner was hesitant. He planned to sell the building.

“At that point I looked at him and said if you give me full control of this building I will turn it around in a year,” Abdul-Alim told the owner in November of 2006. Though he had no managerial experience, Abdul-Alim was introduced the next day to tenants as the new property manager.

When tenants without a lease didn’t turn their pay their rent, Abdul-Alim boarded the apartment door, only allowing tenants to return to gather their things. Those with a lease who did the same had their electricity turned off. “I told them they could take me to court,” Abdul-Alim said. Of the 23 apartments, he said, “only three people were paying rent.” Tenants he saw selling drugs or engaging in prostitution were asked to do so elsewhere.

After several months as manager Abdul-Alim moved into one of the apartments and sought other Muslims to move into the building with him. With others of the same faith together, he saw a need for visibility. “There was no place for Muslims to gather.”

So, he opened the Quran and Sunnah Community Center in one of the vacant storefronts on the block. “It was a place for prayer, events, or even just meals together,” Abdul-Alim said.

This was located adjacent to Abdul-Alim’s other two businesses: Connection Transportation and Natures Garden.

Connection Transportation was a business idea Abdul-Alim thought of when he needed a way out, both metaphorically and physically.

In 2003, he was sentenced to jail for 3 1/2 years for trafficking cocaine. As he had a prior gun charge on his record - possession of a rifle that was missing serial numbers - he didn’t want a third charge against him. “I did choose to sell drugs for a short period of time and I was caught,” Abdul-Alim said.

While in the North Central Correctional Institution at Gardner, he heard from other inmates the difficulty family and relatives had trying to visit without their own vehicles.

Three months after he was out, he registered Connection Transportation as a Springfield business, a service to drive people to and from prison on a sliding scale cost.

“I’ve made some poor choices and I wanted to contribute to the community in a positive way,” he said.

With operations running smoothly a few months in, Abdul-Alim started another business: an organic body goods and health food store called Natures Garden.

For five years he lived in the apartment complex on State Street working as a property manager and running the two companies, the community center and picked up shifts working construction as well. After three years, he married a Moroccan immigrant, Siham Nafi Stewart, who moved in with her son from a previous marriage.

“I thought we were really happy together,” Abdul-Alim said, reflecting on his now former marriage. “I had no idea she’d betray me.”

"Ayyub, he has a gun with him"

Six weeks prior to Abdul-Alim's arrest, 48-year-old Michael Drew was shot and killed in the complex Abdul-Alim managed. When Stewart heard the gunshots, she grabbed her son and hid in the bathroom of the apartment she shared with her husband.

Though she was initially approached by a Springfield Police Officer to discuss the murder of one tenant by another, 70-year-old Walter Dorsett, she agreed to become a confidential informant for law enforcement on different matter. On the stand during a pre-trial hearing, Stewart said she told police Abdul-Alim threatened a tenant with a gun. She said she worried for her safety.

“She believed he was involved with narcotics and weapons,” Sheehan said.

"I called because Ayyub, he has three cars in my name, and I feel like he do something,” she said on the stand. "I want to protect myself. I called for help. He has three cars in my name and he go to New York a lot.”

For the next six weeks leading up to his arrest, Stewart said she spoke with Sheehan on a weekly basis.

On Dec. 9, 2011, Stewart called Sheehan on his cell phone. She reached the Springfield officer after his shift was over, while leaving his mother’s home and told him, “Ayyub, he has a gun with him.”

With this tip, Sheehan requested dispatch tell officers in the area to keep an eye out, leading to his arrest.

Confidential informant

For over a year in jail, Abdul-Alim didn’t know the identity of the confidential informant that gave Sheehan information leading to his arrest.

Then, his defense attorney, Thomas E. Robinson, told him there was a rumor going around the courthouse: Abdul-Alim’s wife was the informant.

“After he told me that, I called her,” Abdul-Alim said. “She told me she loved me and would never do that.”

Though initially only referred to as “informant A,” eventually Stewart was identified and called to the stand as a confidential informant working with the FBI.

“I couldn’t believe it at first,” Abdul-Alim said. “When I went to prison, I signed over my business to her, made sure she was taken care of. She came to visit me often, and always picked up the phone when I called.”

She even spoke of raising enough money for his bail, originally set at $50,000, then lowered to $25,000.

When asked about her comments on the stand regarding safety concerns, he said, “I’ve never hit a woman in my life. My mother, my sister, my wife - I respected and honored all of them.”

When prison became overwhelming after a few months, Abdul-Alim told his then wife he considered calling the FBI. “I told her, 'maybe I should take their deal.’ She actually talked me out of it.”

Though partially redacted, documents shared with MassLive.com in March show payment receipts from the FBI to a confidential informant, and a partial call log between the informant and Abdul-Alim.

The six payments -- the first made in April 2012 and the final in January 2013 -- ranged from $500 to $3,200. In total, the payments add up to $11,949.

For each payment Stewart called Sheehan. "Any time I have a problem with the rent, yes, I call. Like maybe two or three times.” she said on the stand, adding all payments were given to her by Sheehan in cash.

Though receipts showed the transactions, Stewart was vague on the amount she received. When asked if she received $10,000 she said “I don’t remember.” Asked if it was a hundred thousand dollars, “Maybe. I don’t remember.”

When he learned of the money, Abdul-Alim doubted if she was fiscally motivated to speak with the police. “$12,000 is nothing. In 2010, when I filed my tax return, I reported $89,000.”

During pre-trial hearings, Robinson questioned Stewart on her immigration status. She came to America from Morocco on an immigrant visa for a fiancée. Though the marriage didn’t last, the visa was valid for 10 years through 2013.

During her testimony in November she said, regarding her immigration status, “I’m going to be a citizen in January.”

Robinson claimed Stewart was “providing information about my client (Abdul-Alim) in order to secure immigration status perhaps for herself, but also family members.”

The couple has since divorced.

Justice for Ayyub

Last summer, when Abdul-Alim filed a complaint regarding his arrest with the Springfield Police Department, he sent the complaint to the Springfield branch of the NAACP, ARISE for Social Justice and the New England Innocence Project.

Though the New England Innocence Project declined to take his case, and the Springfield branch of the NAACP has not voiced support for him, ARISE for Social Justice members expressed interest. Together, they formed “Justice for Ayyub.”

Many members are a familiar face from activist communities in Western Massachusetts; some advocated for Charles Wilhite - who spent more than three years in a maximum security prison until the conviction was overturned during a retrial - and Jason Vassell - charged with stabbing two white men in his University of Massachusetts Amherst dorm - who said he acted in self defense after they broke his dorm window and racially taunted him.

“I was at UMass when Jason got attacked,” said Joe Mirkin, a member of Justice for Ayyub. “I see a lot of similarities in the case; both facing trumped up charges.”

Since forming, the group held meetings several times a month at the ARISE offices in Springfield. For each meeting, Abdul-Alim called on an activist’s cell phone and they discussed the case.

While they raised awareness of his case, support in the courtroom will be a key event for the group during his trial, which began Thursday.

In the morning before the trial began, members held a vigil outside Hampden Superior Court. Several dozen supporters were in the courtroom. Many wore matching t-shirts - blue with a design featuring a bird flying out of a cage - similar to shirts worn during the retrial of Charles Wilhite.

“We believe our efforts will hold the police and FBI accountable,” Mirkin said.

Such efforts, defense attorney Robinson believes, will help his client. “When an individual has support in the community, it shows he’s not standing alone.”

"Difficult" defense

After the jury was chosen Thursday morning, the defense and prosecution offered opening statements.

The prosecution presented a straightforward case: that the officers arrested a man with prior drug and gun charges, on charges of illegal possession of a loaded firearm, and illegal possession of ammunition and a firearm.

The defense is more complex. “The defense strategy at trial will be that the firearm found on Mr. Abdul-Alim was planted by police, and that the motivation for the firearm being planted on him was that the FBI in particular had a long-standing interest in him for information potentially as an informant. And essentially because he was not cooperative, a gun was planted on him in order to get him to become cooperative,” said Robinson, before the trial.

Abdul-Alim trial: Buffy Spencer's Day 1 recap

When asked, Robinson said it is going to be “difficult” to get a not guilty verdict. “The difficult thing is we will have to convince a jury who will see police officers testify,” said Robinson. “It’s very hard for your average citizen to believe that a police officer would frame someone.”