Latest in Terrorism Trials: Civilian Court
Cesar Altieri Sayoc, arrested in October 2018 in connection with the mailing of 16 pipe bombs to 13 former government officials and prominent Democrats, pleaded guilty on Thursday to 65 felony counts in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Sayoc was charged by the Manhattan U.S.
The FBI has taken custody of Cesar Altieri Sayoc in connection with the attempted mailing of 13 pipe bombs to prominent former government officials, including former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, and other public figures. The Department of Justice has brought five charges against Sayoc in the Southern District of New York.
On July 3, a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York granted Uzair Paracha's motion for a new trial in light of new evidence. Paracha, a Pakistani citizen, was convicted in 2005 for allegedly helping an al-Qaeda operative gain travel documents and enter the United States.
The war with the Islamic State has been underway in Syria and Iraq for many years, and during this time large numbers of Islamic State members have been captured by Iraqi, Kurdish, and allied Syrian forces. The United States almost never takes custody of these captives. (John Doe is a rare exception to that rule, easily explained by the fact that he is an American citizen.)
The war with the Islamic State has been underway in Syria and Iraq for many years, and during this time large numbers of Islamic State members have been captured by Iraqi, Kurdish, and allied Syrian forces. The United States almost never takes custody of these captives. (John Doe is a rare exception to that rule, easily explained by the fact that he is an American citizen.)
On September 7, U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Cooper of the District of Columbia issued an opinion in the case of United States v. Abu Khatallah, granting in part and denying in part the Government’s pretrial motion to admit “other acts” evidence.
Last Thursday at the Aspen Security Forum—an annual gathering of current and former government policymakers, foreign officials, foreign policy experts, and journalists hosted by the Aspen Institute—Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism Thomas Bossert told the audience that there are three viable options for taking an enemy combatant off the battlefield: “we can kill him, we can catch him and release him after a few weeks, maximum, or we can outsource our responsibility and send him to a third party.”
The New York Times reports that the Justice Department has brought Al Qaeda suspect Ali Charaf Damache to Philadelphia to face prosecution in federal court, where a grand jury indicted him in 2011. The full indictment can be found below.
On February 21st, twenty-five year old Robert Lorenzo Hester, Jr. was charged in federal district court in the Western District of Missouri with attempting to provide material support to ISIL. Hester is the second person—after Noor Salman, the wife of the Orlando nightclub shooter—to be arrested on material support charges by the FBI in 2017.
In recent weeks, ISIL sympathizers have wound their way through the court system across the country from Arizona to Florida.