A person accused of being a Somalian terror group operative has been convicted of a 9/11-style plot to kill People, the Justice Division stated Monday.
The Justice Division stated in a press launch {that a} 34-year-old Kenyan named Cholo Abdi Abdullah obtained a verdict of responsible Monday on six counts.
Justice stated Abdullah was convicted of conspiring to offer, and offering, materials help to a overseas terrorist group; conspiring to homicide U.S. nationals; plane piracy; destroying plane and transnational acts of terrorism.
Abdullah faces sentencing in mid-March of subsequent yr, DOJ stated.
Expenses in opposition to Abdullah had been first introduced in late 2020 by federal prosecutors, and he was arrested within the Philippines in mid-2019 on native costs. He was later transferred to the U.S. in 2020.
Within the press launch, the Justice Division stated Abdullah had been a part of Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mijahideen, which the division labeled a “foreign terrorist organization” that’s run out of Somalia.
“After training with al Shabaab for months with AK-47 assault rifles and explosives at a series of safe houses in Somalia, Abdullah participated in a plot to hijack a commercial aircraft and crash it into a building in the U.S.,” the division stated within the launch.
Within the Philippines, Abudllah went to flight faculty for a interval of months, based on the Justice Division, and tried to get a business pilot license.
Justice accused him of in search of work as a pilot, and of in search of to targets “such as the tallest buildings in a major American city.” It also accused him of trying to learn how to “open a cockpit door from the outside.”
“The jury found that Cholo Abdi Abdullah, an operative of the terrorist organization al Shabaab, conspired to murder Americans in a terrorist attack reminiscent of the September 11 attack on our country,” Lawyer Basic Merrick Garland stated within the launch. “At this time’s conviction ensures that Abdullah will spend a long time in jail for his crimes.
For the rely of conspiring to commit acts of terrorism transcending nationwide boundaries, the DOJ stated Abdullah might spend the remainder of his life in jail.
The Hill has reached out to an legal professional for Abdullah for remark.
