Kenyan sentenced to 15 years in prison in US terror case

Saturday, August 29, 2015

advertisements

MIAMI — A Kenyan man described by U.S. prosecutors as a fundraiser and recruiter for terrorist groups in Africa and the Middle East was sentenced Friday to 15 years in federal prison.

U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro imposed the maximum possible sentence on 27-year-old Mohamed Said. He pleaded guilty in May to charges of conspiring to support Africa's violent al-Shabaab group and al-Qaida affiliates in Syria and elsewhere.

Said's attorney, Silvia Pinera-Vazquez, had sought an eight-year sentence because Said never plotted directly against the U.S. and was solely supporting what she described as foreign "insurgents."

But Ungaro said groups he supported have an avowed intent to attack the U.S. and its interests overseas.

Said and co-defendant Gufran Mohammed were arrested in 2013 in Saudi Arabia in a case that evolved from undercover FBI monitoring of Internet chat rooms frequented by Islamic extremists. Mohammed, a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from India, is serving a 15-year prison sentence after pleading guilty.

Said, from Mombasa, Kenya, had never been to the U.S. before his arrest. It was his use of the Internet and communications with undercover FBI operatives and Mohammed, who lived in the Los Angeles area, that enabled the U.S. to charge him.

Said played the more critical role because of his connections to the leadership of the terrorist groups and knowledge of their inner workings, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Ricardo Del Toro.

Said admitted to receiving $11,600 in wire transfers from Mohammed that he distributed to al-Shabaab fighters. Prosecutors say evidence indicates that Said discussed receiving thousands of dollars more from other sources and recruited known terrorists to be sent to Syria.

He also told an FBI covert employee in an email that he knew a British citizen who could travel to the U.S. to stage a suicide attack, according to court documents.

Home
Email

Hiiraan Online