Islamic State terrorist set to help feds prosecute Dearborn man caught in Syria
Federal prosecutors have flipped an Islamic State soldier who has agreed to testify against an accused Islamic State fighter from Dearborn captured on a Syrian battlefield three years ago, an unprecedented level of cooperation during the war on terror.
Prosecutors disclosed the arrangement in a federal court filing in the case against Dearborn resident Ibraheem Musaibli, 30. His capture provided the U.S. government with a rare opportunity to prosecute an American accused of leaving the United States and fighting for the Islamic State group.
Court filings chart Musaibli’s journey from his parents perfume shop in Detroit to a Middle East war zone, describe a harrowing stint in a Syrian prison and international intrigue as the high school dropout negotiated his rescue via encrypted messages exchanged with a member of an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force thousands of miles away in Detroit.
Defense lawyers are trying to suppress the messages, arguing the FBI task force officer used a code name and coercion while offering to rescue Musaibli, but only if he admitted being an Islamic State soldier.
“Just admit the truth,” the officer texted on April 23, 2018. “Any day a bomb could drop and blow your legs off or worse.”
Detroit U.S. District Judge David Lawson will consider suppressing the messages and statements Musaibli made while in custody at an April 7 hearing. Prosecutors requested he hold a hearing during which the unidentified Islamic State soldier would help the government authenticate evidence recovered from Islamic State territory, including rosters of Islamic State fighters, hospital records and other documents.
The Islamic State soldier who is prepared to help the government has pleaded guilty to providing material support to the militant group and is awaiting sentencing. Prosecutors are not naming him publicly at this time because of the perceived danger he would face for cooperating against a fellow Islamic State fighter.
Details about the government’s Islamic State witness and Musaibli’s backstory are contained in federal court files that provide a broader view of evidence gathered during the international investigation.
The evidence includes records recovered in Middle East war zones in at least two countries, rosters of fighters, Islamic State payroll records, hospital paperwork documenting Musaibli’s time in an Islamic State medical center and text messages exchanged on the Telegram app and Facebook Messenger.
“It will be quite interesting to see if the government is able to show the chain of custody and get the evidence into a court of law,” said Seamus Hughes, deputy director of George Washington University’s Program on Extremism. “This could really be something that sets the standard for an ISIS trial.”
The federal court filing provides an unprecedented view of what prosecutors say was Musaibli’s path to radicalization at the hands of Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American-born cleric who trained underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Abdulmutallab attempted to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day 2009.
Musaibli has been in custody since returning to the United States aboard a military plane in July 2018 after being arrested by FBI counterterrorism agents. He was charged with several crimes, including providing material support to the Islamic State group and receiving military training from a foreign terrorist organization, that could send him to prison for more than 20 years.
The case has lingered amid questions about Musaibli’s mental health, but the judge concluded in July that Musaibli was competent to stand trial.
Musaibli was born and raised in Dearborn, helped his father operate a perfume shop in Detroit and spent time in Yemen, his parents’ birth country. While there, he married a woman at age 19, fathered two children and attended a religious school in Dammaj, Yemen, from October 2013-March 2014.
While there, the school was besieged by Shiite rebels who fought with students and local tribesmen for several months. Musaibli returned to Dearborn with his wife and children following a ceasefire.
His wife and children, however, soon returned to Yemen, and Musaibli started watching jihadi propaganda videos online featuring al-Awlaki, the late imam who was killed by a U.S. drone strike in 2011, according to prosecutors.
Musaibli fathered two more children in the United States and Yemen but left before they were born, according to prosecutors, who provided a step-by-step travelogue of Musaibli’s overseas journey.
In fall 2015, he traveled through Saudi Arabia and Turkey. By early November, Musaibli was in Raqqa, Syria, the self-proclaimed capital of the Islamic State, according to the U.S. government.
He attended a 10-day religious training camp before traveling to Mosul, Iraq, for military training, prosecutors said.
“The military camp included training on crossing terrain with a machine gun, shooting a machine gun, and conducting ambush techniques,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Mulcahy wrote. “Upon graduation from the ISIS military training camp, the defendant swore allegiance to ISIS and its leader, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.”
Source: Detroit News
