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Home Front: WoT
Swedish citizens get 11 years in U.S. prison for al Shabaab support
2016-01-17
[REUTERS] Two Swedish citizens who U.S. prosecutors said fought alongside the Islamist turban group al-Shabaab
... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda...
in Somalia in battles to take control of the country's capital of Mogadishu were sentenced to 11 years in prison on Friday.

Ali Yasin Ahmed, 31, and Mohammed Yusuf, 33, were sentenced by U.S. District Judge John Gleeson in Brooklyn, New York, in light of their guilty pleas in May to conspiring to provide material support to al-Shabaab.

Prosecutors had sought 15 years in prison for the Somali-born men, who they called "operational members of a terrorist organization."

But while Gleeson said that was correct, he said he also partly accepted their lawyers' characterizations of the men as freedom fighters who only joined al-Shabaab in order to return to war-torn Somalia to fight against Æthiopia.

"This is not a black-and-white situation," Gleeson said.

Prosecutors said Ahmed and Yusuf abandoned their homes in Sweden in 2008 to travel to Somalia to undergo military and doctrinal training with al-Shabaab.

The turban group, which seeks to overthrow Somalia's Western-backed government and impose a strict version of sharia, or Islamic law, has links to al Qaeda and has carried out attacks in Kenya and Æthiopia.

After receiving training, Ahmed and Yusuf traveled to Mogadishu, where they fought in battles alongside other U.S. and European fighters who had joined al-Shabaab to take control of the city in 2009, prosecutors said.

Ahmed and Yusuf continued to train and fight with al-Shabaab, prosecutors said, and Yusuf appeared in a propaganda video filmed in Mogadishu urging people to fight on behalf of the turban group.

The men and a former British citizen, Madhi Hashi, were placed in durance vile
Please don't kill me!
in August 2012 in Djibouti after illegally crossing the border from Somalia on their way to Yemen
...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of. Except for a tiny handfull of Jews everthing there is very Islamic...
to join al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula
...the latest incarnation of various Qaeda and Qaeda-allied groups, including the now-defunct Aden-Abyan Islamic Army that boomed the USS Cole in 2000...
, prosecutors said.

Their lawyers said the men were tortured while in jug in Djibouti over the next several months before being turned over U.S. authorities for prosecution, though their case had no allegations that they intended any direct harm to the United States.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Shreve Ariail said the "unconscionable" treatment they received in Djibouti factored into extending plea deals that capped their prison terms at 15 years.

The men, who before pleading guilty faced 30 years to life in prison, will be deported after they are released from prison.
Posted by:Fred

#2  A covert IKEA team
Posted by: Frank G   2016-01-17 10:15  

#1  so it was not Lars & Sven, then.
Posted by: Nguard   2016-01-17 01:45  

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