Minneapolis
The case lay at the intersection of immigration, Islam, and terrorism and, coincidentally, ended the week following the victory of President-elect Donald Trump. To borrow a Trumpian term, the “Minnesota men,” as media generically referred to a circle of Somali-American ISIS supporters, are bad hombres. At a campaign stop in Minneapolis on November 6, Trump delivered the message that we “have seen firsthand the problems with faulty refugee vetting, with large numbers of Somali refugees coming into your state, without your knowledge, without your support or approval.” It was the sons of some who sought refuge in the United States from the bloodshed in their native land who became enamored of the idea of causing more of it.
The first “Minnesota men” were indicted in April 2015; eventually 10 in total were charged with seeking to leave the United States to join ISIS in Syria. One is presumed dead in the Middle East. Six pleaded guilty: Zacharia Abdurahman, Hamza Ahmed, Adnan Farah, Hanad Musse, Abdirizak Warsame, and Abdullahi Yusuf. And three—Abdirahman Daud, Guled Omar, and Mohamed Farah (Adnan Farah’s older brother)—contested the charges at trial in federal district court and were found guilty earlier this year (see “‘Minnesota men’ on trial,” June 20, 2016). Judge Michael Davis presided over that trial, as he had previous trials against Minnesotans charged with supporting a terrorist group (in those cases, Somalia’s al Shabaab), and sentenced all nine men at individual hearings over three days this month: first, the two who cooperated with the prosecution, followed by the four who pleaded guilty without cooperating, and finally the three who pleaded not guilty and lost. The judge’s punishments ranged from time served to 35 years in prison.
Despite the gravity of the offenses committed by the defendants, all well-spoken males in their early 20s with access to education and employment, they enjoyed substantial support within the Somali community and among the Twin Cities crowd of social justice warriors, such as those gathered under the umbrella of Minnesotans Against Islamophobia. These supporters charged the FBI with entrapping the defendants and demanded their freedom. The incredibly incriminating evidence produced by the government—including 40 hours of recorded conversations with an informant—proved that accusation ludicrous. Even the defendants themselves rejected it. “I’m certainly not being persecuted for my faith. I was certainly not entrapped,” Daud declared at his sentencing hearing. “I was not going there to pass out medical kits or food. I was going strictly to fight and kill on behalf of the Islamic State.”
Judge Davis made clear his view at virtually every one of the nine sentencing hearings. “I have traveled the world trying to figure out what to do with this jihadist behavior,” he said. “Terrorists and their supporters should be incapacitated for a long period of time.” His pronouncements were aimed variously at the defendants’ families and the broader Somali community, the defendants’ supporters, and Minnesotans generally. “This community needs to understand there is a jihadist cell in this community. Its tentacles spread out. Young people went to Syria and died,” he said at one hearing. “You’re dealing with a terrorist organization that’s the most dangerous this world has ever seen,” he declared at another. “Our own community won’t even live up to it and understand that what is happening is something that must be prosecuted.”
Judge Davis invited each defendant to make a statement prior to sentencing. He then interrogated them regarding their beliefs and their conduct, asking them to acknowledge that they are terrorists. He clearly hopes the affirmative answers he received will dispose of the myths retailed in the Somali community and the disparagement of law enforcement that is rampant among the social justice crowd. “I’ve seen all the lies, all the deception, that this conspiracy—this cell—has put forth. It’s out of the playbook of ISIL,” he said. The judge directed any children present to leave the courtroom and then played excerpts of the gruesome ISIS videos that inspired the young men as they plotted to join the group in Syria. The defendants had seen the videos, of course, many times over. He didn’t play them for the defendants; he played them to show their family and friends in attendance their deadly objectives.
The judge orchestrated the sentencing hearings to serve a purpose beyond punishment. In their sentencing memorandum for Omar, the purported ringleader, prosecutors suggested why sending such a message was necessary: “No trial in the aggregate memory of the U.S. Attorney’s Office has been conducted in more of an atmosphere of intimidation, harassment, and incipient violence than the trial of this case. The families of cooperating defendants were harassed in the courtroom, in full view of the testifying witness; there was a fistfight in the corridor outside the courtroom; multiple individuals had to be ejected from the courtroom for not following the Court’s rules of behavior.”
Judge Davis rewarded the cooperating defendants with lenient sentences—in one case, time served, in the other case, 30 months—and those who didn’t cooperate but pleaded guilty with sentences of 10 to 15 years. He gave two of the men found guilty at trial, Daud and the older Farah, 30 years. Guled Omar, who testified at trial and baldly lied to the jury about his exploits, received 35 years. “You’re charismatic, and that’s why you’re being locked up for the period that you are,” the judge told him. Omar had quoted the Southern Agrarian writer Wendell Berry at his hearing and claimed, “I always had energy for justice as a young man, but I lost my way.” ¨
Scott W. Johnson is a Minneapolis attorney and contributor to the site Power Line.
