Tuesday, October 09, 2012
By David Hanners
Four days into the prosecution's case against a man who allegedly helped finance the Somali group al-Shabaab, at least one thing has been proved beyond a reasonable doubt: The investigation was huge.
Secret judges issued secret warrants to intercept an untold number of phone calls; the number of calls remains classified. While some federal agents culled computerized immigration records and airline manifests, others went to Somalia and dug up remains of a suicide bomber to check fingerprints and DNA.
Even the government's presence in the courtroom is big: Three assistant U.S. attorneys, a Justice Department lawyer and an FBI agent sit at the counsel table.
Nearly halfway into the government's case against Mahamud Said Omar, a witness has claimed that the Minneapolis man gave "pocket money" to a man bound for Somalia, that he contributed money to an al-Shabaab safe-house and that he spoke in code when talking on the phone about the alleged conspiracy.
Still to come: statements Omar made while in custody, records showing the number of calls from his phone to men who traveled to Somalia and records of three money transfers he allegedly sent to recipients in the East African country.
Omar, 46, of Minneapolis, has maintained his innocence. He is heard saying in a phone conversation played for the jury: "I am also thinking about trusting God and put my trust in God ... and tell the truth to whoever questions me."
Omar's trial enters its second week Tuesday,
Oct. 9, in federal court in Minneapolis. Prosecutors have called 10 of their 22 potential witnesses, and as with each day so far, court will begin only after a federal agent walks a bomb-sniffing dog through the courtroom.
It is the only case to go to trial in the FBI's investigation into the exodus of as many as two-dozen young men from the Twin Cities to Somalia to fight for al-Shabaab.
Omar and 17 other men have been charged. Seven have entered guilty pleas. Eight are fugitives. One is known to be dead -- it was his grave that FBI agents dug up -- and another is believed dead.
Defense attorney Jon Hopeman, who spent more than a decade as a federal prosecutor, said even he has been awed by the size of the probe.
"It's the biggest investigation I've seen," he said. "I wouldn't say (the) most thorough, but biggest."
Omar was an $800-a-month part-time janitor at a Minneapolis mosque, where the alleged conspiracy is believed to have been hatched in fall 2007. He is accused of three counts of conspiracy and two counts of providing aid to terrorists.
He allegedly provided money and encouragement to young Somalis to fight for al-Shabaab, the militant group seeking to impose extremist Islamic rule in Somalia.
The State Department's February 2008 designation of al-Shabaab as a foreign terrorist organization made it a crime to aid the group.
The FBI has dubbed the men who went to Somalia "the travelers," and one of them has testified. A second was expected to resume testimony Tuesday, to be followed by a third.
All three have pleaded guilty to criminal charges and await sentencing. The one who finished testifying, Abdifatah Yusuf Isse, acknowledged under cross-examination that he hoped his testimony against Omar would bring him a lighter sentence.
In his opening statement to the jury, Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Kovats Jr. said Omar was part of a "pipeline" that radicalized young men in the Twin Cities and helped them get to Somalia.
But so far, Isse and the second "traveler" to testify, Salah Osman Ahmed, have identified the ringleaders and chief recruiters as two Minneapolis men, Abdiweli Yassin Isse, 27, and Ahmed Ali Omar, also 27.
Both have been charged. They are fugitives.
Abdifatah Isse and Salah Ahmed have told jurors that a group of men met secretly at a Minneapolis mosque, restaurants and elsewhere in autumn 2007 and discussed the need to fight a holy war against Ethiopian troops then in Somalia helping the country's transitional government.
Both said they knew little to nothing about al-Shabaab when they got involved and agreed to return to a country they'd left as children. They said the group kept its plans secret from mosque leaders because they knew they'd be opposed.
Omar Ali, the mosque's director at the time, said in an interview that he and other leaders there knew nothing of the meetings.
At least one phone call hints that others might have been involved in recruiting and have not been charged. In the call, the defendant describes for Abdifatah Isse a conversation he had with someone at the mosque, and says he told the man that those returning to Somalia were doing so because of what they had been taught at the mosque.
"They follow what you taught them," Omar said, recounting for Isse his conversation with the man, whom he described as a teacher. "You teach them day and night, so if someone leaves ... then you will bear the responsibility. You are a bad boy." Omar did not specify the objectionable teaching in the transcript.
Omar Jamal, a sometimes controversial figure in the local Somali community, said the conversation makes it appear others are more culpable than the man on trial.
"There are more, bigger fishes that we lose and are responsible for this mess," said Jamal, now an official with the Somali mission to the United Nations. He has been attending the trial daily.
"To me, it looks like he was duped," he said of Omar.
Jurors have heard six phone calls between Omar and Abdifatah Isse. (They speak Somali in the calls, and jurors read from English translations.) The government intercepted the calls after getting a secret warrant under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Prosecutors haven't disclosed how many calls were intercepted over how long a period of time.
"I'm sure there are thousands left that we haven't been told about," Hopeman said. "I've never seen a wiretap that only yielded six or seven calls. That's just impossible. Under FISA, the defense isn't permitted to know much."
Indeed, the government had to declassify the calls and other evidence used at trial. Unlike defense lawyers for the other "Rhino" defendants, Hopeman and his two colleagues have not been required to get security clearances.
The six phone calls stand in contrast to last year's trial of two Rochester women accused of raising and sending $8,600 to al-Shabaab over a 10-month period. In their case, which wasn't part of the FBI's Omar probe, the government intercepted more than 30,000 calls.
Prosecutors played 91 of the calls at their trial as jurors followed along with English translations. An FBI linguist testified that it took a five-member team several months to go through the thousands of calls and type transcripts.
Federal agents also searched one of the women's garbage twice a week for 10 months.
"I always said I thought they spent $2 million just in salaries to do that case, and I don't think I'm very far off," said Dan Scott, who represented one of the women.
The defense attorney said the government resources disclosed in the women's case were extensive, but he wondered what it achieved other than convicting his client and her co-defendant. (They await sentencing.)
"You can't tell everything going on below the surface, but at the surface, it was an incredible amount of work for a relatively small case," he said.
"When you think about it, what's the testimony been? Ethiopia is invading this war-torn country and there are young men recruited to go fight for the homeland.
"They are young men and they are full of patriotic fervor and they are going to fight in a civil war," he said.
David Hanners can be reached at 612-338-6516.