Lying? Who'da thunk it?

Colin Mynihand has an article in The New York Times about a father lying for his son:

The father of a man who plotted to set off homemade bombs in Manhattan subway cars was convicted of obstructing justice and conspiring to obstruct justice during a federal investigation of his son.
The jury convicted the man, Mohammed Wali Zazi, of lying to agents, encouraging others to lie, and forming and carrying out a plan to destroy evidence that his son had left behind in a relative’s garage.
The verdict, which came on the second day of deliberations, followed a three-day trial in federal district court in Brooklyn that involved testimony against Zazi from FBI agents as well as relatives who were drawn into the investigation of his son, Najibullah Zazi. The relatives, a nephew and a brother-in-law, eventually pleaded guilty to various charges and signed agreements to cooperate with prosecutors. The credibility of those witnesses became a focal point of the trial, with defense lawyers suggesting that their testimony was motivated by self-interest, because they face lengthy sentences that could be lessened significantly based on their cooperation with the government. “They are both proven liars,” one of Zazi’s lawyers, Deborah A. Colson, told the jurors during her closing arguments. “They lied to the FBI; they lied to the grand jury.”
But Berit W. Berger, an assistant United States attorney, rebuffed that claim in her closing argument, pointing to the defendant and saying: “The focus is not on the guilt of the cooperators. The focus is on the guilt of that man, Mohammed Wali Zazi.”
Zazi plans to appeal his conviction.
Najibullah Zazi pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, conspiracy to commit murder overseas, and providing material support for a terrorist organization. He faces a sentence of life in prison.
Mohammed Wali Zazi was accused of planning to destroy bomb-making equipment, including solvents, chemicals, masks, and goggles, that Najibullah Zazi had left in a garage in Colorado belonging to Naqib Jaji, who is married to Mohammed Wali Zazi’s sister. He was also accused of lying to FBI agents about his familiarity with an imam in New York and about his relationship with a nephew. The imam, Ahmad Wais Afzali, was a police informant who said he tried to help detectives gather information in 2009, but ended up alerting Najibullah Zazi that he was under scrutiny.
An FBI agent, Micheal Copeland, testified that Mohammed Wali Zazi denied knowing Afzali, although phone records showed that the two had recently spoken. Prosecutors said Mohammed Wali Zazi had also lied about his nephew, Amanullah Zazi, telling agents that he was an adopted son, and instructing family members to tell the same false story to a grand jury.
Amanullah Zazi pleaded guilty in January of 2010 to helping Najibullah Zazi and others travel to an al-Qaeda training camp in Waziristan, a region of northwest Pakistan; to lying to a grand jury; and to helping destroy the items in Jaji’s garage. He told jurors that Mohammed Wali Zazi had ordered the destruction of that material in 2009, but acknowledged under cross-examination that he had first given investigators that account last month.
The other relative who testified against Mohammed Wali Zazi was his brother-in-law, Jaji, who said that the defendant had conspired to destroy the bomb-making material and had instructed him to falsely tell a grand jury that Amanullah Zazi was his adopted son. Jaji said during his testimony that he had pleaded guilty last year to conspiring to obstruct justice.
Mohammed Wali Zazi faces up to twenty years in prison on each of the two counts. Judge John Gleeson said that he would be sentenced in December.

Rico says lying for your kid is fine, unless your kid is an attempted mass murderer..