By Matt Pearce, reporting from Minneapolis
Wednesday, May 11, 2016
Family members of the three men facing terrorism-related charges make their way to the courthouse (Associated Press)
Titles of Islamic State propaganda videos flashed across the screens positioned in front of the 16 jurors -- “Flames of War,” “Upon the Prophetic Methodology,” “Changing of the Swords 4.”
Then, federal prosecutors showed jurors a photo of several men whose freshly severed heads sat on the ground. The jurors stared. So did the three young Somali American men on trial.
You don't need to understand Islamic State's ideology, Assistant U.S. Atty. Andrew R. Winter told the jurors. All you need to know, he said, is that a group of young Somali American men in the Twin Cities area had watched Islamic State videos and wanted to go to Syria to take part.
“This is what the defendants wanted to do... tried to do... time and time again,” Winter said.
Opening arguments began in federal court Wednesday in a case prosecutors say marks a significant moment in the effort to convict American men who have attempted to join and fight with Islamic State in Syria.
Women dressed in abayas — family members of the defendants — partially filled the gallery as prosecutors vowed to show how a group of young men from Minneapolis' large Somali American community were radicalized by Islamic State propaganda videos and Anwar Awlaki lectures and formed plans to leave the U.S.
Mohamed Abdihamid Farah, Abdirahman Yasin Daud and Guled Ali Omar face charges of conspiring to commit murder outside the U.S. and providing material support to a terrorist organization by joining Islamic State. Officials said the men tried to leave America by taking buses to catch flights in New York or to cross into Mexico from San Diego to begin an international journey to Syria.
At least two others of their acquaintance have pleaded guilty to related charges and agreed to testify for the prosecution.
The case is likely to be presented as an example for how Islamic State propaganda strikes young Muslim men like a contagion — spreading through friends and relatives who have gone off to fight for the militant group.
Prosecutors said they would also show how the young men tried to dupe their families, who sometimes took dramatic steps to prevent their recruitment to Islamic State by seizing passports and car keys.
“We just have to act normal to our families,” Daud told his fellow conspirators, prosecutors said.
Another defendant, Farah, allegedly bragged to his friends about getting his passport back from his family after they had seized it, suspicious of his intentions: “I hustled my grandma. I tricked her.”
In the prosecution's opening argument Wednesday, Winter said the group of young Somali American friends in Minneapolis first became interested in going to Syria after two of their friends, Hanad Mohallim and Abdi Nur, made the journey to Syria from Minneapolis. There, Nur and Mohallim began posting Islamic State "glamour shots" of themselves on social media, posing with Kalashnikov assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, prosecutors said.
In one tweet shown by prosecutors, Nur sent what he called a message to America from Islamic State: “We love death more than you love life.”
The prosecution's case in Minneapolis is also aided by undercover audio taken by a friend of the defendants who became an FBI information.
In transcripts of that audio shown during the prosecution's opening arguments, the defendants discussed the best ways to avoid detection by law enforcement, including using secured social media apps such as Kik.
“If they knew about Kik, we'd all be arrested,” Farah allegedly said.
The defense has yet to give its opening argument, and family members declined to comment about the case until after opening arguments.