... Somalia's version of the Taliban, functioning as an arm of al-Qaeda...
, Hinda Osman Dhirane began her trial with an unusual admission: she is an ardent Al-Shabaab supporter.
Dhirane's attorney, federal public defender Paula Deutsch, began her opening statement Monday reading parts of a poem Dhirane had written as an ode to Al-Shabaab fighters.
"We make no bones about the fact she was a supporter of Al-Shabaab," an Al Qaeda affiliate centered in Somalia that grabbed credit for the 2013 attack on the Westgate Mall in Kenya that killed 67 people, among other attacks, Deutsch said.
"But it's talk. It doesn't prove that she necessarily provided substantial assistance to Al-Shabaab."
Prosecutors, though, say Dhirane, 46, of Kent, Wash., and Muna Osman Jama, 36, of Reston, Va., did more than just talk about supporting Al-Shabaab.
The two were charged in 2014 with funneling small amounts of money -- less than $5,000 -- to Al-Shabaab fundraisers. Even small amounts of money in U.S. dollars can provide significant buying power in Somalia for weapons and the like, prosecutors said.
Prosecutor Danya Atiyeh said in her opening statement that the women sought to hide the payments in remittances that members of the Somali diaspora regularly send back to their homeland.
The remittances, she said, "make an ideal cover for disguising money," Atiyeh said. She quoted Jama from an online conversation in 2012; "If you work with the women and pretend that you are supporting your family, can the infidels and the animals who work with them find out what is in your heart?"