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FALLS CHURCH, Va, — A northern Virginia man convicted almost a decade in the past of supporting the Islamic State group as a young person has now been accused of violating his phrases of launch by assembly with convicted Taliban supporter John Walker Lindh.
In response to courtroom paperwork, the FBI photographed Ali Shukri Amin assembly withLindh on three completely different events in for about three hours. The doc doesn’t state the place the conferences occurred. The conferences violate a situation of Amin’s supervised launch, which bars him from assembly with recognized extremists, prosecutors mentioned.
The conferences may have nicely have constituted a violation of Lindh’s supervised launch as nicely after they occurred however Lindh’s time period of supervised launch expired final yr and he’s not topic to supervision.
It’s not totally clear why authorities used the assembly as a foundation to assert a violation in opposition to Amin however not in opposition to Lindh, on condition that they each had been barred from assembly with extremists.
The courtroom paperwork present, although, that authorities had cause to be involved about Amin past his conferences with Lindh. Amin, who lives in Dumfries, can also be accused of corresponding on-line with a British particular person described as a “recognized extremist” till that individual was arrested in February 2022 by British authorities.
In his conversations with the British particular person, authorities say Amin supplied steering associated to the teachings of two Islamic preachers thought of extremists by the FBI, in accordance with the courtroom doc.
The doc additionally accuses Amin of utilizing a digital personal community to hide his on-line exercise and evade the supervision of his parole officer.
Michael Jensen, an investigator with the College of Maryland’s Nationwide Consortium for the Research of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, mentioned terrorism defendants are assigned to veteran probation officers who commit important time and vitality to serving to them transition again into their communities, and it’s uncommon to petition for revocation of supervised launch.
“(I)f a probation officer is petitioning the courtroom to revoke supervised launch, then they’ve important issues that the person is just not reintegrating into their neighborhood efficiently and that they continue to be a possible menace,” he mentioned.
It’s clear, although, that the FBI and different businesses additionally proceed to harbor issues about Lindh’s exercise, ideology, and continued radicalization after his launch from jail in 2019. The courtroom doc describing Amin’s conferences with Lindh state that Lindh “stays a recognized extremist and is believed by the FBI to carry extremist ideations.”
Lindh was the primary American to face main terrorism expenses after the Sept. 11 assaults. He was convicted of supplying providers to the Taliban after he was captured in Afghanistan within the weeks after the Sep 11 assaults preventing with Taliban forces in opposition to the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance.
He was sentenced to twenty years in jail as a part of a plea deal and was launched from custody in 2019 after serving about 85 p.c of his sentence, with the rest lowered for good conduct.
Shortly earlier than he was launched, a decide imposed further restrictions on his 3-year interval of supervised launch, along with the unique situations which included the ban on assembly with recognized extremists. The brand new necessities included monitoring software program on his web gadgets; requiring that his on-line communications be carried out in English; and forbidding him from possessing extremist materials, holding a passport or leaving the U.S.
Amin’s case was notable primarily due to his age. It’s uncommon for federal prosecutors to hunt and procure convictions in opposition to folks underneath the age of 18. However Amin was 17 when he pleaded responsible in 2015 to serving to the Islamic State group by utilizing social media to offer recommendation and encouragement to the Islamic State group and its supporters underneath the Twitter deal with Amreekiwitness — Amreeki interprets to “American.”
He additionally admitted serving to a classmate, 18-year-old Reza Niknejad, journey to Syria to affix the Islamic State group.
He was sentenced to greater than 11 years in jail however later had his sentence lowered to 6 years. Nonetheless, he filed a number of lawsuits and petitions searching for to have his conviction overturned. In a single lawsuit he accuses the FBI of “manipulating his underdeveloped juvenile mind” and contributing to his radicalization by putting his on-line actions underneath surveillance at a younger age.
Regardless that he admitted his guilt, he argued that his on-line actions ought to have been protected free speech and that he was wrongly prosecuted “based mostly on his occupation of views which don’t conform to the normative scope of American bipartisan consensus.”
A listening to on whether or not to revoke Amin’s supervised launch is scheduled for Feb. 13. Amin’s lawyer, Jessica Carmichael, declined to remark however is predicted to file a movement on her consumer’s behalf forward of the listening to.
Judges have the choice to ship defendants again to jail or to increase their time on supervision, although in Amin’s case he has already been sentenced to lifetime supervision.
