Latest in Terrorism Trials & Investigations
The FBI has filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York charging Sayfullo Saipov for the Oct. 31 vehicular attack in Manhattan.
Four international terrorism trials began, continued, or wrapped up in the past few weeks. In the Eastern District of New York, a U.S. citizen and al Qaeda operative who had been deported from Pakistan to the United States, was convicted of terrorism charges by a federal jury. Across the bridge in the Southern District, the Chelsea bomber’s trial began last Monday. On the same day in D.C. federal district court, the mastermind behind the 2012 Benghazi attacks also stepped into the courtroom.
As September comes to a close, it has been a relatively quiet month for international terrorism arrests and prosecutions in the United States. All of the action—with the exception of one arrest—took place in New York City in the Southern and Eastern Districts. Next week, the attention will likely shift to Washington, D.C. when the trial of Abu Khatallah, the alleged perpetrator of the 2012 Benghazi attack, begins on October 2 in D.C. federal district court.
Since President Trump fired Jim Comey as FBI director, the FBI has received quite a bit of attention. More than 19.5 million people tuned in to watch former director Comey testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee, and shortly thereafter, Etsy shops began to stock “Lordy, I hope there are tapes” apparel. But while the bureau grabs people’s attention, arrests of international terrorism subjects generally don’t make headlines.
On August 16th, U.S. District Judge Christopher R. Cooper of the District of Columbia issued an opinion denying Abu Khatallah’s Motion to Suppress statements he made to FBI agents while in custody.
Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I filed a lawsuit. It may be the friendliest lawsuit ever filed against the Justice Department.
I filed it because I believe President Trump lied before Congress about data kept by his Justice Department, and I want to find out whether I'm right.
Back in Februrary, in his address to a Joint Session of Congress, Donald Trump made an arresting claim: “according to data provided by the Department of Justice, the vast majority of individuals convicted of terrorism and terrorism-related offense since 9/11 came here from outside of our country.”
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.
On January 19th, in federal district court in New York, Akhror Saidakhmetov, a 21-year-old citizen of Kazakhstan, pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide material support to ISIL, according to the Justice Department’s press release.