No sooner do I tell you about the touchy-feely politically correct novel about Somalis in Maine, then I see the news that yet another terrorist funding trial is opening in San Diego. Four men, including a mosque leader, are charged with sending money to the Al-Qaeda franchise in the Horn of Africa—-al Shabaab.
Just last month, here, we learned that a San Diego Somali woman got 8 years in the slammer for the same thing. Taxpayers get to pay for their resettlement and then their prison terms.
Coincidentally, I learned tonight that lucky San Diego was the first US resettlement city for Somalis in the early 1990’s. (I’ll tell you about that tomorrow).
Somalis are busy standing trial—we reported on the Somali Christmas tree bomber case here a few days ago!
This is the latest news, emphasis mine, from UT San Diego. (hat tip: Shariah Finance Watch)
SAN DIEGO — The San Diego trial of four Somali men charged with sending money and support to the terrorist group al-Shabaab is scheduled to begin in federal court this month.
A federal grand jury indicted the men in 2010 on charges of conspiracy, providing material support to terrorists, providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization and money laundering.
They have all pleaded not guilty. The men are accused of funneling about $8,000 raised in San Diego’s Somali immigrant community to al-Shabaab fighters in 2008.
At a hearing last week before U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Miller on pretrial motions, the four defendants sat quietly in the jury box. A group of supporters filled the seats in the courtroom’s gallery — men sitting on one side and women on the other.
The defendants are Basaaly Saeed Moalin, a cabdriver; Mohamed Mohamed Mohamud, the imam of a City Heights mosque; Issa Doreh, former president of a nonprofit group aiding the Somali community; and Ahmed Nasir Taalil Mohamud of Anaheim.
Who are these lawyers? Inquiring minds would like to know!
Interest in the case is high within the immigrant community in San Diego and nationally. The men are being represented by lawyers from around the country who were recruited by a legal foundation that since 2001 has raised money to represent Muslims accused of crimes in federal and state courts.
There is more, read it all. And, this is funny, lawyers for the defendants want to keep mention of al-Qaeda out of the trial so as not to remind jurors that violence and death are associated with Jihadists.
For new readers we have resettled more than 100,000 Somali refugees to cities large and small in the US over the last 25 years. See one of the most widely read posts here at RRW. In three years since 9/11 ( Bush years 2004, 2005, 2006) the number of Somalis arriving topped 10,000 per year. Those refugees then began bringing in the family (chain migration!) until 2008 when shock of shocks! the State Department discovered that as many as 30,000 Somalis had lied about their kinship and weren’t related at all. The State Department then closed the “family reunification” program for Somalis. It has recently been re-opened for new and legit family members, but they have no intention of finding and deporting the liars.