 | « Back to article | Print this article |
Two American nationals linked to Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad were sentenced on Tuesday to 13 and 17 years in prison respectively by a US court for supporting terror groups and providing them with material aid for attacks in the United States and abroad.
US District Judge William Duffey Jr of federal court in Atlanta sentenced Pakistan-origin Syed Haris Ahmed of Atlanta and Bangladesh-American Ehsanul Islam Sadequee of Roswell, Georgia, following their convictions earlier this year in separate but related criminal trials. Like David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Rana the two arrested and charge sheeted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for being involved in the Mumbai terrorist attack -- Sadequee and Ahmed too were in contacts with the leaders of LeT and JeM. However unlike Headley, who sent video footage and photographs of possible LeT targets in India, Sadeequee and Ahmed sent video clips of possible LeT targets in the US.
Judge Duffey Jr. sentenced Sadequee to a term of 17 years in prison, to be followed by 30 years of supervised release. He sentenced Ahmed to 13 years in prison, also to be followed by 30 years of supervised release. "This is not about your faith," Judge Duffey Jr. told them. "This is about your conduct. This is about the rule of law in this country that you have decided does not apply to you."
"The radicalisation of US citizens by jihadist recruiters abroad is a very real and growing concern that the FBI and the US Government as a whole must deal with," said FBI Atlanta Special Agent in Charge Greg Jones in a statement. Born in Fairfax, Virginia, in 1986, Sadequee attended school in the US, Canada and Bangladesh. In December 2001, while living in Bangladesh, he sought to join Taliban, to help them fight against US and coalition forces in Afghanistan. Federal prosecutors said Sadequee and Ahmed began discussing their obligation to support jihad in late 2004. By this time, both Sadequee and Ahmed had become active on several web forums known to support the cause of jihad. These discussions quickly grew into an active conspiracy with others to provide material support to terrorists engaged in violent jihad.
The evidence indicated that the material support consisted of first Sadequee, Ahmed and other individuals who intended to provide themselves as personnel to engage in jihad and second property, namely, video clips of potential targets in the Washington, including the US Capitol, the World Bank headquarters, the Masonic Temple, and a fuel tank farm -- all of which were taken by Sadequee and Ahmed to be sent to "the jihadi brothers" abroad. In support of the conspiracy, in March 2005 Sadequee and Ahmed traveled to Toronto to meet with other co-conspirators, including Fahim Ahmad, one of the "Toronto 18" suspects awaiting a terrorism trial in Canada.
While in Canada, Sadequee, Ahmed their co-conspirators discussed their plans to travel to Pakistan in an effort to attend a paramilitary training camp operated by a terrorist organisation, as well as potential targets for terrorist attacks in the United States. In April 2005, federal prosecutors said Sadequee and Ahmed drove to the Washington, DC, area to take the casing videos, which the government's evidence showed they made to establish their credentials with other supporters as well as for use in violent jihad propaganda and planning. Sadequee later sent several video clips to Younis Tsouli, aka "Irhabi 007" (Arabic for "Terrorist 007"), a propagandist and recruiter for al-Qaeda in Iraq, and to Aabid Hussein Khan, aka "Abu Umar", a facilitator for the LeT and JeM. Both Tsouli and Khan have since been convicted of terrorism-related offenses in the UK and are imprisoned there.
According to evidence presented at trial in July 2005, Ahmed traveled from Atlanta to Pakistan in an unsuccessful attempt to enter a terrorist training camp and ultimately engage in violent jihad. While in Pakistan, Ahmed met with Khan, and the discussed Ahmed's intention of joining a camp. The day before Ahmed returned to Atlanta, Sadequee left for Bangladesh, carrying with him, hidden in the lining of his suitcase, an encrypted CD; a map of Washington, DC, that covered all of the areas he and Ahmed had cased; and a scrap of paper with Khan's mobile phone number in Pakistan.
Once in Bangladesh, Sadequee began to conspire more closely with Younis Tsouli and Mirsad Bektasevic, a Swedish national of Serbian origins. After returning to Atlanta to resume his studies at Georgia Tech in August 2005. Ahmed remained in contact with Sadequee, expressed regret at his failure to join violent jihadists, conducted internet research on topics such as high explosives and defeating Special Operations troops and discussed his intent to make another attempt to enter a terror training camp.
Ahmed was arrested on March 23, 2006, in Atlanta, on material support of terrorism charges. He has been in custody ever since. Sadequee was arrested on April 20, 2006, in Bangladesh on charges arising out of false statements he made in an August 2005 interview with the FBI in the Eastern District of New York. Sadequee was indicted in the Northern District of Georgia on July 19, 2006, and transferred to Atlanta in August of that year, after the charges in EDNY were dismissed at the Governments request.