Law Man arrested at New Mexico compound was training kids to commit school shootings - The Sam Hyde Academy closes for the summer

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http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/08/0...mit-school-shootings-court-documents-say.html

The father of a missing 3-year-old who was arrested at a New Mexico compound last week was training children to commit school shootings, court documents filed on Wednesday revealed.

Prosecutors allege Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, 39, was conducting weapons training on the compound, where 11 children were found hungry and living in squalor. They asked Wahhaj be held without bail.

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Prosecutors alleged in court documents filed Wednesday that Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, 39, was training children to commit school shootings. (Taos County Sheriff's Office)

Authorities raided the compound on Friday after a monthslong search investigating the disappearance of Abdul-ghani Wahhaj, a boy with severe medical issues who went missing from Georgia in December.

DAD ARRESTED AT 'EXTREMIST' NEW MEXICO COMPOUND PLANNED 'EXORCISM,' TIED TO TERROR-LINKED IMAM, REPORT SAYS

On Monday, a child's remains were found on the property, but authorities were working on a positive identification and did not confirm if the remains were that of the missing boy.

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From the left, Subhannah Wahhaj, Jany Leveille and Hujrah Wahhaj were arrested on Friday. They are the mothers of the 11 malnourished children. (Taos County Sheriff's Office) (Taos County Sheriff's Office)

Lucas Morton, Jany Leveille, 35, Hujrah Wahhaj, 38, and Subhannah Wahhaj, 35, were also arrested on the property on Friday and all face child abuse charges.

The makeshift compound — located near the Colorado border — was found shielded by old tires, wooden pallets and other debris. Upon authorities' arrival, Wahhaj was "heavily armed with an AR15 rifle, five loaded 30 round magazines, and four loaded pistols, including one in his pocket when he was taken down," Taos County Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe said.

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The makeshift compound — located near the Colorado border — was found shielded by old tires, wooden pallets and other debris. (AP Photo)

The sheriff said the children, ages 1 to 15, "looked like third world country refugees not only with no food or fresh water, but with no shoes, personal hygiene and basically dirty rags for clothing.”

The only food investigators found was some potatoes and a box of rice inside a dirty trailer, the sheriff said, adding the living conditions were “the ugliest looking, filthiest” he’s ever seen.

Hogrefe previously said the occupants of the compound were "most likely heavily armed and considered extremist of the Muslim belief."

In a warrant made public on Monday, Wahhaj told the missing boy's mother that he wanted to perform an "exorcism" on his then-3year-old son because he was "possessed by the devil." The missing child reportedly suffered from seizures and couldn't walk.

Wahhaj’s family background was already controversial prior to his arrest. Wahhaj is the son of a Brooklyn imam, also named Siraj Wahhaj, who was named by prosecutors as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the New York Post reported.

The elder Wahhaj, who heads Masjid At-Taqwa mosque, was a character witness in the trial for Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the notorious “blind sheikh” who was convicted in 1995 of plotting terror attacks in the U.S.

Fox News' Katherine Lam and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Please pay no attention to the race or religion of those arrested
 
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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45380235

Five adults at a desert compound in New Mexico have been arrested by the FBI weeks after a judge received death threats for granting them bail. The two men and three women dijo:
charges include unlawful possession of firearms by an illegal immigrant, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, and aiding and abetting in the committing of an offence[/URL], the FBI said in a statement on Friday.

The accused had been under FBI drone surveillance at their remote compound north of Taos since May, according to Taos County Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe.

Police raided the compound near Amalia in early August in the search for a missing three-year-old boy, Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj.

It was then that they discovered the remains of a young boy along with 11 malnourished children, who were reportedly being held at the site. Police also seized "at least 11 firearms and a large quantity of ammunition".

The boy's father, Siraj Wahhaj, is suspected of abducting him from his Georgia home in December and was one of the five arrested.

He was detained at the site, along with Lucas Morten, Jany Leveille, Hujhrah Wahhaj and Subhannah Wahhaj.

Protests over bail decision
On 13 August, Judge Sarah Backus granted bail to the five defendants after she said the prosecution had failed to convince her that they were a threat to the community.

The prosecution argued that all five adults were dangerous and claimed they had trained the children to use weapons and prepare to carry out school shootings.

"The state alleges that there was a big plan afoot, but the state hasn't shown to my satisfaction, in clear and convincing evidence, what that plan was," Judge Backus said.

She ordered that all five must wear ankle monitors and have weekly contact with their lawyers.

But her decision was met with protests including an email in which she was called an "Islamic terror sympathiser".

The Taos County court building was evacuated briefly on Tuesday after the threats.

Prosecutors talk of 'religious rituals'
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Image copyrightAFP
Image captionSuspects Siraj Wahhaj (L) and Lucas Morton
Prosecutors also said that the remains found at the site were those of Abdul-Ghani and that the other children said the boy had died during a "religious ritual... intended to cast out demonic spirits", during which Siraj Wahhaj had put his hand to his son's forehead, and recited verses from the Koran.

Abdul-Ghani suffered from seizures, but Mr Wahhaj believed the boy was possessed by the devil and needed to be exorcised, court papers said.

However defence lawyers accused the prosecution of treating the five suspects unfairly because they are Muslim - something the prosecutors deny.

Defence lawyer Thomas Clark said after the hearing that if the accused were Christian and white then "nobody would bat an eye over the idea of faith healing".

"But when black Muslims do it, there seems to be something nefarious, something evil," he said.
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Jury selection opens in terrorism trial of extended family members dating to 2018 New Mexico raid
Associated Press (archive.ph)
By Morgan Lee
2023-09-25 22:14:18GMT

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Jury selection began Monday in federal court as members of an extended family confronted kidnapping and terrorism charges stemming from the search for a missing 3-year-old boy by agents who raided a squalid New Mexico encampment in 2018.

The boy’s badly decomposed remains were eventually found in an underground tunnel at the compound on the outskirts of Amalia near the Colorado line. Authorities allege the family engaged in firearms and tactical training in preparation for attacks against the government, tied to an apparent belief that the boy would be resurrected as Jesus Christ and provide instructions.

An exact cause of death was never determined amid accusations that the boy, who was sickly, had been deprived of crucial medication linked to disabilities. Federal prosecutors opted for kidnapping charges.

The two men and two women on trial have pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiring to support planned attacks on U.S. law enforcement officers, military members and government employees. They also deny the kidnapping charges leveled against three of the defendants.

Albuquerque-based U.S. District Judge William P. Johnson has set aside four weeks for the trial, with dozens of witnesses scheduled to testify.

A grand jury indictment alleges that defendant Siraj Ibn Wahhaj and partner Jany Leveille, a Haitian national, instructed people at the compound to be prepared to engage in jihad and die as martyrs.

Leveille also was initially charged with kidnapping and terrorism-related charges but she agreed to accept a reduced sentence on weapons charges.

Neither Leveille nor her attorneys appeared at the defense table in court Monday. Leveille came to the U.S. in 1998 on a visa and work permit that later expired and immigration authorities denied an application for permanent residency.

A federal prosecutor and Aja Brooks, spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Albuquerque, declined to answer questions about Leveille’s whereabouts, plea agreement or her status as a potential witness at trial. A defense attorney for Leveille has declined comment.

Potential jurors were being surveyed on their opinions about the Islamic religion, Muslims and alternatives to traditional medicine.

Attorneys for the defendants have said their clients would not be facing terrorism-related charges if they were not Muslim and that prosecutors are highlighting speculative and imagined theories about terrorist activities.

Defense attorneys also called the FBI’s theories about terrorism activities at the Amalia compound speculative and unfounded. They said there were no specific threats to the general public or individuals.

The grandfather of the missing boy is the Muslim cleric Siraj Wahhaj, who leads a well-known New York City mosque that has attracted radicals over the years, including a man who later helped bomb the World Trade Center in 1993.

Siraj Wahhaj could not be reached immediately by phone or email, but previously said his son and namesake is high-strung but not an extremist, and his two detained daughters are the “sweetest kinds of people.”

Sheriff’s deputies and state agents arrived in August 2018 to find the defendants living with 11 hungry children without running water or sanitation at the encampment encircled by berms of tires with an adjacent shooting range. Assorted guns and ammunition were seized, authorities said.

FBI interviews with the children led authorities to the boy’s remains.

Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj was reported missing by his mother in Georgia in December 2017. Around that time, authorities say, the boy’s father, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, set out with relatives and a cache of guns by car, ultimately reaching a New Mexico and a parcel of high-desert scrubland near a tiny, crossroads town.

Prosecutors plan to present evidence that Siraj Ibn Wahhaj and Leveille performed daily prayer rituals over the boy, even as he cried and foamed at the mouth, while depriving him of crucial medication.

They say the boy’s dead body was hidden and washed for months in the belief by Leveille that it could one day return as a messiah, who would explain what corrupt government and private institutions must be eliminated. In the 2018 raid, authorities reported seizing handwritten journals, laptops, phones and video of tactical training from the compound.

The four defendants at trial — including sisters Hujrah Wahhaj and Subhanah Wahhaj, and Subhanah’s husband, Lucas Morton — were charged with conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States, providing material support to each other as potential terrorists, amid tactical drills at the New Mexico compound. Morton and Siraj Ibn Wahhaj additionally are charged with conspiracy to kill U.S. government personnel.

Kidnapping charges are pending against three defendants but not Siraj Ibn Wahhaj because of his legal status as the boy’s father.

Siraj Ibn Wahhaj and Morton have waived their right to legal counsel and will provide their own defense, introducing themselves directly Monday to potential jurors. Several potential jurors said told the judge they would be unable to serve impartially because of the kidnapping allegations surrounding a child’s death.
 
Teen testifies about boy's death and firearms training at New Mexico compound
Associated Press (archive.ph)
By Susan Montoya Bryan
2023-09-28 03:21:26GMT

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — With his hand placed on his son’s neck, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj recited verses of the Quran as part of a ritual meant to rid the toddler of evil spirits that Wahhaj and members of his extended family believed were causing the boy’s ailments.

The ritual known as ruqyah had been done countless times on the boy. But this time was different. It ended with the child foaming from the mouth until he stopped breathing.

There were no calls to 911 or attempts to rush him to the nearest hospital. Nor was he given any medication that December day in 2017 at a remote desert encampment in northern New Mexico.

Details about the last moments of Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj’s life were laid out in testimony Wednesday in a trial that centers on accusations of kidnapping and terrorism. The boy’s father and three other family members, including two of his aunts, were charged following an August 2018 raid of a squalid compound near the Colorado state line as authorities searched for the 3-year-old boy, who had been taken from Georgia without his mother’s permission.

The defendants were living with their 11 hungry children. There was no running water at the encampment, which was encircled by berms of tires with an adjacent shooting range where guns and ammunition were seized.

Prosecutors presented evidence Wednesday that Siraj Ibn Wahhaj and his partner Jany Leveille, a Haitian national, took Abdul-Ghani to resettle in New Mexico, where they performed prayer rituals on the boy and the other children. Leveille was initially charged with kidnapping and terrorism-related charges, but she agreed to accept a reduced sentence on weapons charges. She has not appeared at the trial.

Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, along with his sisters Hujrah and Subhanah Wahhaj, and the latter’s husband, Lucas Morton, were charged with conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States, among other counts. Morton and Siraj Ibn Wahhaj were also charged with conspiracy to kill U.S. government personnel.

No one was charged in the boy’s death because the body was too badly decomposed to determine how he died. His body was initially wrapped in plastic and placed under one of the beds in the trailer where the family was living. The body was brought out daily so it could be washed, until the remains were eventually placed in a tunnel on the property.

Leveille’s son, who was 13 at the time, was asked by prosecutors about the moments before the boy died, the family’s journey to New Mexico and the prophecy that his mother had relayed to the group — that the boy would be resurrected as Jesus Christ and an army they hoped to recruit would rid the world of nonbelievers.

The teen said his role was to memorize the Quran and teach it to others, while Siraj Ibn Wahhaj’s role was to train the army.

The teen described the firearms and tactical training he and his older brother participated in at the makeshift shooting range. Fearing that they were being surveilled by federal authorities, the group spent months out of sight under a tarp, in a camper trailer and underground in tunnels they had dug. They used a bucket for the bathroom, and Morton was able to get food from a food bank miles away.

The teen, who now lives with an aunt and cousins in New York, testified that life at the compound was “terrible.”

“I was stuck in a hole that I couldn’t get out of,” he said.

The teen spent more than three hours on the stand, with defense attorneys scheduled to question him Thursday. Two other children who lived at the compound also were expected to testify.

Defense attorneys for Wahhaj’s sisters have argued that the terrorism charges are largely based on a fantastical diary written by Leveille about her belief that Abdul-Ghani would be resurrected and that the family’s efforts to secure basic shelter in a harsh, remote environment were being misrepresented by prosecutors.

Prosecutors showed numerous photos of the compound and videos of some of the firearm exercises while Leveille’s son was on the stand. The teen testified that the group had to stay hidden because Abdul-Ghani had been reported missing.

Early on, authorities who were searching for the boy had visited the home where they were staying in Georgia. The teen said it was soon after that his mother, stepfather and the others gathered a few belongings and began the caravan to New Mexico, where Morton owned land.

The teen said his mother had received a message from Allah that they had to move quickly. The teen was told to pack seven outfits. He also took his game console. Everything else was left behind.

A prosecutor asked about the mood the night they left Georgia.

“It felt dark and rushed and surreal,” the teen testified.
 
Father and other family members are convicted in New Mexico kidnapping and terrorism case
Associated Press (archive.ph)
By Susan Montoya Bryan
2023-10-18 00:26:17GMT

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FILE - An aerial view of a makeshift compound is seen in the desert area of Amalia, N.M., Friday, Aug. 10, 2018. (AP Photo/Brian Skoloff, File)

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Jurors on Tuesday convicted a father of terrorism charges in a case that stemmed from the search for a 3-year-old boy who went missing from Georgia and was found dead hundreds of miles away at a squalid compound in northern New Mexico in 2018.

Prosecutors told jurors that the boy’s father, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, and other members of his family had fled with the toddler to a remote stretch of the high desert so they could engage in firearms and tactical training to prepare for attacks against the government. It was all tied to an apparent belief that the boy would be resurrected as Jesus Christ and provide instructions.

Jurors reached their decision after deliberating for two-and-a-half days.

In a case that took years to get to trial, jurors heard weeks of testimony from children who had lived with their parents at the compound, other family members, firearms experts, doctors and forensic technicians. The defendants, who are Muslim, argued that federal authorities targeted them because of their religion.

Wahhaj’s brother-in-law also was convicted of terrorism charges, conspiracy to commit kidnapping, and kidnapping that resulted in the boy’s death. Wahhaj’s sisters were convicted on the kidnapping charges.

The badly decomposed remains of the boy were eventually found in an underground tunnel at the compound on the outskirts of Amalia near the Colorado state line.

An exact cause of death was never determined amid accusations that the boy, who lived with severe developmental disabilities and frequent seizures, had been deprived of crucial medication.

Prosecutor George Kraehe said during closing arguments last Thursday that the boy — Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj — was at the heart of the case and he urged everyone in the courtroom to remember the toddler’s name. He repeated it while turning to look at the defendants as the boy’s mother, Hakima Ramzi rushed from the courtroom in tears.

Prosecutors recounted the hurried journey the four defendants and their children took from Georgia to Alabama and eventually New Mexico. They left nearly everything behind, including other family members who sent numerous texts, emails and social media messages pleading with them to bring the boy home.

“They were running and hiding because they knew what they had done was wrong,” Kraehe told jurors.

Siraj Ibn Wahhaj’s partner — Jany Leveille, a Haitian national — was initially charged with kidnapping and terrorism-related charges, but instead reached a plea agreement on weapons charges. She did not appear at the trial.

Prosecutors argued Leveille was charting the group’s course based on messages that she received from God, detailed in passages in a journal.

Siraj Ibn Wahhaj represented himself in court. He told jurors that the federal government was presenting a false narrative and that they needed to consider only the facts as they deliberated his fate and that of his two sisters and his brother-in-law.

“The government portrayed me to look like a monster,” he said, explaining that his family was close-knit and they were trying to protect his son from evil spirits. He said they used a ritual known as ruqyah in which passages from the Quran are recited.

He told jurors it was one thing to be able to defend one’s self from a physical attack, but that a spiritual attack — which he believed was happening to his son — required prayer.

Defense attorneys for Hujrah and Subhanah Wahhaj told jurors that they played no role in the boy’s death and were only at the compound to care for their own children as they endured inhospitable conditions that included cold temperatures and harsh winds. They talked about how one of the women searched the internet to find information on trapping squirrels and birds, so the family could eat more.

Prosecutors argued that the women were part of what they described as a “sick end-of-times scheme” that evolved after the boy’s death, and that they had “an avalanche of evidence” against all four defendants.

The defendants adopted what prosecutors called “a number of unique beliefs that set them on a dangerous path.”

A sentencing date has yet to be scheduled.

According to prosecutors, the charges related to kidnapping resulting in death carry a mandatory life sentence. The charges of providing support in preparation for terrorist attacks on U.S. government officials and employees are punishable by up to 15 years in prison, while the charge of conspiracy to kill a government officer or employee carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.
 
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