The Arizona Daily Star has posted a very detailed report on what happened in court in Tucson with the government’s case against a husband and wife team who allegedly had some relationship with Islamic terror group al-Shabab in Africa. See my previous post here.

Fraud, fraud and more fraud!

So much for Obama’s extreme vetting…..

I’ve snipped just a bit of the story below, but please read the whole thing.  A few of the many things that interested me were:

~The pair (28 and 25 years old)  it now seems have used various names and have FIVE children with one still in Africa. Is it a young boy they left for the terrorists to raise?

~They came to the US via China and they supposedly got to Beijing, China on $500 (5,725 mile 14 hour flight on $500?).  And, why were we picking up random Somalis in Beijing?

~He (whatever his name is) lost his hands in a blast in a market, he says. Was he delivering a bomb that exploded prematurely? Or, perhaps making the bomb?

~The couple was getting ready to move to Minneapolis. What! to hide in the huge Somali community there?

I’m sure you will have even more questions when you read the whole story:

Tucson man accused of Somali terror ties lied at every turn, government says

Whether Mohamed Abdirahman Osman is a refugee who lied about terrorist links to get immigration benefits or if he’s been wrongly targeted by a flawed government investigation that matches the Trump administration’s rejection of certain refugees is being played out in a Tucson courtroom.

Hearings here last week illustrated the difficulty in finding facts in the case, including whether Mohamed Abdirahman Osman is even his real name.

Osman, 28, is charged with eight counts of making false statements when he applied for refugee status and legal permanent residency. For the sake of consistency, the Star is using the name listed on court documents.

The government alleges Osman lied about his ties to the terrorist group al-Shabab, his name, his nationality, his father’s name, a brother whom the government identifies as an al-Shabab associate, and that he presented a fraudulent Somali passport to obtain immigration benefits.

Osman remains detained pending trial after a magistrate judge ruled last week that although the government did not “prove by clear and convincing evidence” that he is a danger to the community, it showed he’s a flight risk.

“Given the nature and seriousness of the offense charged, the weight of the evidence against the defendant and the defendant’s family and community ties, the court finds that no combination of conditions exist that would reasonable assure defendant’s appearance at future court proceedings,” Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Rateau said.

[….]

His wife, Zeinab Abdirahman Mohamed, 25, was released on Aug. 10 on her own recognizance after the judge determined she was not a flight risk or a danger. She faces three counts of providing false information in support of Osman.

Mohamed attended Osman’s arraignment hearing with their four children — they have a fifth child who lives in Somalia — along with members of the local Somali community. Osman, wearing a prison jumpsuit and thick-rimmed glasses, listened through an interpreter and briefly smiled when he saw his family.

[….]

Osman, together with his wife, fled Somalia after he lost both of his hands and vision in one eye during a 2010 bomb attack. Then, the couple was kidnapped by Al-Shabab and held hostage in an abandoned milk factory.

Osman paid $500 to be smuggled to Beijing via Kenya, where he was given a Somali passport with a visa for China, FBI special agent Benjamin Trentlage, part of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, testified. The couple lived in Beijing for three years before applying and getting refugee status to resettle in Tucson in 2014 with their daughter.

Osman has told different stories about what happened, including how he lost his hands, to different people. And he seems to have issues telling the truth, Assistant U.S. Attorney Beverly Anderson told the judge.

[….]

But she [Anderson] said the couple had given notice on their Tucson apartment and bought tickets to Minneapolis, where there’s a large East African population, and that he had the means and capability to obtain fake documents to leave the country.

He will therefore stay behind bars for now.  Good decision judge!

You will see that his defense is built around Donald Trump and how he is out to get Somalis…Gheesh!!!

Just for your information there are four federal refugee resettlement contractors working in Tucson. I wonder which one was taking care of this pair?

World Relief, International Rescue Committee, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, and the US Conference of Catholic Bishops all had offices there during the Obama Administration.