It's wrong to compare Somalis returning to their homeland to fight to Americans who join Israel's military, the government contended in a legal filing Friday in the case of a Twin Cities man accused of conspiring with terrorists.
Omer Abdi Mohamed, 26, contends he is the victim of selective prosecution in the federal investigation into the exodus of several Twin Cities Somalis back to Africa to fight. In motions filed this week, the St. Anthony man's attorney asked that some charges be dropped, likening him to Americans who enlist legally in the Israeli Defense Forces.
In reply, two government lawyers label the analogy "inapt."
Mohamed "facilitated the travel to Somalia of men who were aligned with violent Islamic extremists to fight against the recognized government of Somalia and its Ethiopian supporters," Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Kovats Jr. and Justice Department lawyer William Narus wrote in their reply to Mohamed's motions.
What's more, they argue, Mohamed failed to present evidence suggesting that he was singled out for prosecution on the basis of race, religion or some other factor. Such a showing is required to prove selective prosecution.
U.S. Magistrate Steven Rau will have a hearing in St. Paul on Wednesday on a raft of motions filed by Mohamed.
Mohamed is to go to trial July 19 in U.S. District Court on charges that he provided material support to terrorists and conspired to kill, kidnap, maim and injure when he allegedly helped seven
men fly from the Twin Cities to Somalia in late 2007.
He was originally charged in November 2009, but last month, a federal grand jury added three counts, alleging he aided and abetted others to possess a firearm during a "crime of violence."
He is one of 19 men and women with Twin Cities ties named in charges stemming from an investigation into the exodus of 20 or more young Somali men back to their homeland. The men were allegedly persuaded to fight for al-Shabaab, which was declared a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department in 2008.
In particular, the filing by Kovats and Narus say that Mohamed "planned and facilitated" the travel of men from Minnesota to Somalia in 2007, and that to finance travel to Africa, "the defendant and his co-conspirators raised money under false pretenses from members of the Somali community in Minnesota."
Al-Shabaab was part of a coalition trying to wrest control of Somalia from a U.N.-backed transitional government set up in 2004. To retake the nation's capital of Mogadishu, the government brought in soldiers from neighboring Ethiopia.
Many Somalis viewed the foreign troops as invaders, and in a motion filed this week, defense attorney Peter Wold contended that Mohamed was no different than "the Israeli-American who returns to Israel to defend his fellow citizens during a time of conflict."
Wold said that Mohamed "must balance his allegiance between two nations" and that the balance was tested in 2006 when "the Ethiopian government invaded Somalia and ousted the existing Somali government."
The defense contends the government is prosecuting Mohamed because he "is a different race and religion."
Kovats and Narus say the government has sought to prosecute Mohamed and anyone else suspected of similar crimes.
The government lawyers also said they would turn over evidence that one of the men Mohamed allegedly helped travel, Shirwa Ahmed, died in a suicide bombing. Kovats and Narus said they would turn over "reports of the autopsy of Ahmed."
Wold has complained that he hasn't seen much of the evidence against Mohamed because a lot of it remains classified because it was gathered under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA. Attorney General Eric Holder has submitted an affidavit declaring "that it would harm the national security of the United States to disclose publicly or hold an adversarial hearing" on the FISA evidence.
David Hanners can be reached at 612-338-6516.
Source: The Twin Cities Pioneer Press
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