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This undated file photo provided the Sherburne County, Minn., Sheriff's Office shows Abdirahman Yasin Daud, one of three Minnesota men found guilty of conspiring to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State.(Photo: AP)
Three men from Minneapolis’ large Somali community have been found guilty of conspiring to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State and commit murders on behalf of the terror group.
The jury verdict means that Guled Omar, 21; Abdirahman Daud, 22; and Mohamed Farah, 22, could face life in prison for their parts in a conspiracy that included at least dozen men from Minnesota that prosecutors say sought to kill on behalf of ISIL in Syria.
Prosecutors used secret recordings made by a paid<span style="color: Red;">*</span>FBI informant to help make their case. In the recordings, the defendants and others in the conspiracy could be heard talking brashly about ISIL and plotting how to make their way to Syria to join the terror organization.
In addition to the informant, Abdirahman Bashir, two members of the conspiracy, Abdullahi Yusuf and Abdirizak Warsame, also testified on behalf of the prosecution.
Yusuf and Warsame said that it was the intent of the members of the group to travel to Syria, where they all expected to kill on behalf of ISIL. The two were among six members of the group charged in the conspiracy that plead guilty earlier this year to providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization.
Two other men that were part of the group, Abdi Nur and Yusuf Jama, were able to successfully travel to Syria without getting caught. Nur, who is believed to still be in Syria, has been charged in the case; authorities believe Jama was killed in the fighting.
During the trial, an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force officer testified that a relative of Nur from Minnesota, Mohamad Roble, also had travelled to Syria in October 2014. Bashir said some members of the Minneapolis reached out to Roble in 2014 to seek money, so they could make the trip to Syria to join ISIL.
It’s not clear if Roble provided any of the young men with funding, and he has not been charged with a crime. Roble, who was among 145 injured in a 2007 bridge collapse in Minneapolis that left 13 dead, was due to receive a $65,000 upon his 18th birthday in 2014, according to the Associated Press.
This undated file photo provided by the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office shows Guled Ali Omar.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: AP)
Prosecutors say the conspiracy began in earnest after a cousin of the FBI informant, Hanad Mohallim, managed to travel to Syria in March 2014.
At that point, members of the group had become inspired to head to Syria by either first travelling to Mexico and then wending their way to Syria, or flying to Turkey and crossing across the Syrian-border from there.
Prosecutors say Omar made plans to travel to Syria in May 2014 with Bashir via Mexico, but canceled the plans after he was confronted by family members. They said that Omar even withdrew $5,000 from federal financial aid debit card to pay for the trip. Omar’s attorney, Glenn Bruder, told jurors that his client was only planning a vacation to San Diego.
Farah along with three other members of the conspiracy took a Greyhound bus to New York with the intention of flying overseas. Three of the men were stopped at customs and a fourth was taken off a flight bound for Istanbul.
Days later, Omar was stopped by authorities as he tried to get on a flight from Minneapolis to San Diego.
Daud, Farah, and Omar were arrested along with three other members of the conspiracy on April 19, 2015.
Daud and Farah were arrested after travelling to San Diego with the informant as they sought to buy fake passports from an undercover FBI agent. Omar was arrested, along with three other conspirators, in Minneapolis.
USA TODAY
Attorneys make closing arguments in Minneapolis ISIL trial
This undated file photo provided by the Washington County Sheriff's Office in Stillwater, Minn., shows Mohamed Abdihamid Farah. Farah was found guilty on Friday, June 3, 2016 of conspiring to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State.<span style="color: Red;">*</span>(Photo: AP)
Bashir testified that he decided in late 2014 to ditch his own efforts to join ISIL and begin working for the FBI as an informant after he was caught lying to a grand jury. He said his decision was also influenced by death of four cousins, including the Minneapolis-man Mohallim, were killed in Syria.
In Bashir’s recordings that were played for jurors, Farah could<span style="color: Red;">*</span>be heard showing appreciation for an ISIL video which shows extremists burning a Jordanian pilot alive. Omar refers to Turkish security officials as “freaking pigs.” Daud talks about wanting to get an AK-47 upon arrival in Syria, so he can kill Shiites.
After it became apparent that the FBI was in the midst of an investigation into ISIL recruitment efforts in the Minneapolis Somali community, the defendants also spoke about the need to outfox federal authorities.
“The way to fake the government, you know what I’m saying, you get a job normal, be American citizen,” prosecutors allege Daud said, according to court documents. “Wallahi (I<span style="color: Red;">*</span> promise by God) they’ll get off your back. Go to school full time. That’s the type of stuff.”
Prosecutors alleged Farah even contemplated wearing cologne that smells like marijuana to convince others he was no longer radical, according to court documents.
Attorneys for Daud and Farah told the jurors that the recordings showed plenty of bluster from the young men but did not prove they were part of a conspiracy. They also questioned the credibility of the star witness Bashir, who earned $119,000 from the FBI for working as an in informant. Defense attorneys also question why a brother of Bashir, who was also a member of the group, was never heard in the recordings.
“In this case, he had about 119,000 reasons to lie to you,” said Glenn Bruder, Omar’s defense attorney.
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