Associated Press -
FILE - This combination of undated photos show Somali nationals, from
left,
Mahamud Said Omar, Abdifatah Yusuf Isse, Salah Osman
Ahmed, and Omer Abdi Mohamed. Nine people convicted in a government
investigation of terror recruitment and financing for an al-Qaida-linked group
in Somalia are to be sentenced in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis.
Authorities say more than 20 young men
By Associated Press,
MINNEAPOLIS — Two men who left Minnesota to join
al-Shabab in Somalia were sentenced Tuesday to three years in federal prison,
while a man they characterized as a local leader in efforts to recruit them to
the terrorist group was sentenced to 12 years.
They were among six men sentenced this week for their
roles in the government’s long-running investigation into the travels of more
than 20 young men who left Minnesota to join the al-Qaida-linked group in
Somalia — a phenomenon that has been called one of the largest efforts to
recruit U.S. fighters into a foreign terrorist group.
Abdifatah Yusuf Isse, 29, and Salah Osman Ahmed, 30, both
left Minnesota and traveled to Somalia in 2007. They both spent about a week in
an al-Shabab training camp before they said they realized what the group was
all about and escaped.
The government recommended they receive less than the
maximum sentence of 15 years in prison because they cooperated. Chief U.S.
District Judge Michael Davis went even lower than prosecutors recommended,
sentencing them to three years.
The timing of their departure from al-Shabab was not lost
on Davis, who a day earlier gave a 10-year sentence to a man who stayed in the
camp longer and participated in an ambush.
“I’m going to take a chance on you,” Davis told Isse.
“You devised a scheme to get away. That told me a lot about you. ... If you had
been involved in the ambush, you’d be doing a lot of time.
“You’ve got a lot to live up to now,” the judge added.
“If I’m wrong about you, it’s on my head.”
As part of their cooperation, Isse and Ahmed testified in
the recent trial of another defendant. In that trial, they characterized Omer
Abdi Mohamed as a leader in recruitment efforts, saying he used the Quran to
convince them they were doing the right thing.
Davis sentenced Mohamed to 12 years on Tuesday, without
providing a reason. But after hearing that witness testimony about Mohamed last
October, and learning that Mohamed was volunteering at a school, Davis called
Mohamed “a danger to the community.”
In his guilty plea in 2011, Mohamed admitted he attended
secret meetings and helped recruits get plane tickets — even providing a false
itinerary for one traveler — but he never traveled to Somalia himself. He faced
a maximum of 15 years, but the government recommended slightly less because he
cooperated.
Mohamed’s attorney, Peter Wold, was stunned by the
sentence.
“I’m distraught,” he said afterward, adding he plans to
appeal.
Wold told Davis during the hearing that another man, not
Mohamed, was the real ringleader and that the travelers were not motivated by
the Quran, but instead went to fight Ethiopian troops.
Many Somalis viewed the Ethiopians as invaders in their
homeland.
Wold said after Mohamed learned the truth about
al-Shabab, he distanced himself from the group’s activity.
Mohamed asked Davis for mercy, and said he would never
harm the U.S.
The courtroom was packed with dozens of Mohamed
supporters. Wold told the judge about 200 Somali community members wrote
letters to the court on his client’s behalf, calling Mohamed respectful, kind
and helpful.
“I have a very strong community that knows my heart,”
Mohamed said.
An Ohio man who admitted that he helped raise money so
others could travel from Minnesota to Somalia was also sentenced Tuesday. Ahmed
Hussein Mahamud, who lived in Minnesota until moving to Ohio in 2011, received
three years in prison on one terror-related count.
His attorney, Rick Mattox, said his client was a “target
of the conspiracy, a would-be traveler” who didn’t go to Somalia.
Three more people face sentencing later this week in this
case and in a case on terror financing.
Davis, who has overseen these cases for years, said he
still struggles to understand what would make young men from good families, who
came to Minnesota as refugees, choose to return to violence.
“We have to figure out what’s going on and try to make sure
this never happens again,” he said.
___
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