Meetings with Lindh prompt move to revoke convict’s release
FALLS CHURCH, Va, (AP) — A northern Virginia man convicted almost a decade in the past of supporting the Islamic State group as an adolescent has now been accused of violating his phrases of launch by assembly with convicted Taliban supporter John Walker Lindh.
In response to courtroom paperwork, the FBI photographed Ali Shukri Amin assembly withLindh on three completely different events in for about three hours. The doc doesn’t state the place the conferences occurred. The conferences violate a situation of Amin’s supervised launch, which bars him from assembly with recognized extremists, prosecutors mentioned.
The conferences might have effectively have constituted a violation of Lindh’s supervised launch as effectively once they occurred however Lindh’s time period of supervised launch expired final yr and he’s now not topic to supervision.
It isn’t solely clear why authorities used the assembly as a foundation to say a violation in opposition to Amin however not in opposition to Lindh, provided that they each had been barred from assembly with extremists.
The courtroom paperwork present, although, that authorities had motive to be involved about Amin past his conferences with Lindh. Amin, who lives in Dumfries, can be accused of corresponding on-line with a British particular person described as a “recognized extremist” till that particular person was arrested in February 2022 by British authorities.
In his conversations with the British particular person, authorities say Amin offered steering associated to the teachings of two Islamic preachers thought-about extremists by the FBI, based on the courtroom doc.
The doc additionally accuses Amin of utilizing a digital non-public community to hide his on-line exercise and evade the supervision of his parole officer.
Michael Jensen, an investigator with the College of Maryland’s Nationwide Consortium for the Examine of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, mentioned terrorism defendants are assigned to veteran probation officers who commit vital time and vitality to serving to them transition again into their communities, and it is uncommon to petition for revocation of supervised launch.
“(I)f a probation officer is petitioning the courtroom to revoke supervised launch, then they’ve vital issues that the person is just not reintegrating into their group efficiently and that they continue to be a possible menace,” he mentioned.
It’s clear, although, that the FBI and different businesses additionally proceed to harbor issues about Lindh’s exercise, ideology, and continued radicalization after his launch from jail in 2019. The courtroom doc describing Amin’s conferences with Lindh state that Lindh “stays a recognized extremist and is believed by the FBI to carry extremist ideations.”
Lindh was the primary American to face main terrorism costs after the Sept. 11 assaults. He was convicted of supplying providers to the Taliban after he was captured in Afghanistan within the weeks after the 11th of September assaults combating with Taliban forces in opposition to the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance.
He was sentenced to twenty years in jail as a part of a plea deal and was launched from custody in 2019 after serving about 85 % of his sentence, with the rest lowered for good habits.
Shortly earlier than he was launched, a choose imposed further restrictions on his 3-year interval of supervised launch, along with the unique situations which included the ban on assembly with recognized extremists. The brand new necessities included monitoring software program on his web units; requiring that his on-line communications be carried out in English; and forbidding him from possessing extremist materials, holding a passport or leaving the U.S.
Amin’s case was notable primarily due to his age. It is uncommon for federal prosecutors to hunt and acquire convictions in opposition to individuals beneath the age of 18. However Amin was 17 when he pleaded responsible in 2015 to serving to the Islamic State group by utilizing social media to supply recommendation and encouragement to the Islamic State group and its supporters beneath the Twitter deal with Amreekiwitness — Amreeki interprets to “American.”
He additionally admitted serving to a classmate, 18-year-old Reza Niknejad, journey to Syria to hitch the Islamic State group.
He was sentenced to greater than 11 years in jail however later had his sentence lowered to 6 years. Nonetheless, he filed a number of lawsuits and petitions looking for to have his conviction overturned. In a single lawsuit he accuses the FBI of “manipulating his underdeveloped juvenile mind” and contributing to his radicalization by inserting his on-line actions beneath surveillance at a younger age.
Despite the fact that he admitted his guilt, he argued that his on-line actions ought to have been protected free speech and that he was wrongly prosecuted “based mostly on his career of views which don’t conform to the normative scope of American bipartisan consensus.”
A listening to on whether or not to revoke Amin’s supervised launch is scheduled for Feb. 13. Amin’s lawyer, Jessica Carmichael, declined to remark however is predicted to file a movement on her shopper’s behalf forward of the listening to.
Judges have the choice to ship defendants again to jail or to increase their time on supervision, although in Amin’s case he has already been sentenced to lifetime supervision.
