Arrest
He was approached by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on December 8, 2003 and volunteered to be interviewed, and told them about his time spent in Afghanistan. He was arrested the following day and held in "secret detention" at Hennepin County jail for two weeks, during which police registered him under an anonymous name and didn't allow a paper trail when public defender Dan Scott met with Warsame.
See also: ghost prisonerHe was transferred to New York City, and indicted on January 21, 2004. During this time, he alleges that they tried to convince him to lie and say that Zacarias Moussaoui, who he had seen at mosque, had confessed to being part of the 9/11 plot to him. When he refused, he says they charged him with supporting terrorism himself.
The FBI originally claimed that he had lied to them, and charged him with providing false information, although he was later listed as having been fully honest with law enforcement from the beginning of his questioning.
His lawyers contend that the nearly six-year wait for his trial is the longest any person has been held without trial in American history. On May 20, 2009, federal prosecutors announced that Warsame pleaded guilty to one count of "conspiring to support al-Qaida", with the remaining charges dismissed.
On May 2009 Warsame pled guilty in a plea bargain. Four of the five charges against him were dropped. He pled guilty to "conspiring to provide material support and resources to Al-Qaida."
According to Warsame's lawyers, he acknowledged attending a training camp, in 2000. But he had not done so out of a desire to engage in Jihad. Rather, he had initially traveled to Afghanistan under the impression it was a kind of Muslim utopia. He found it wasn't, and wanted to return to his life in North America, but he had run out of funds. He attended the camp because he would be fed there. According to his lawywers he did send funds to someone he had met at the camp. But it wasn't a donation. That individual had loaned him enough money to fly back to Canada. And the funds he sent back were a repayment of that loan.
Read more about this topic: Mohammed Warsame
Famous quotes containing the word arrest:
“An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so.”
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