ALEXANDRIA, Virginia: More than 100 people in the US have been charged with trying to help Daesh, or trying to join it, but Mohammed Khweis stood out because he succeeded.
Khweis, 27, the only American citizen to be convicted in a US jury trial of successfully joining Daesh overseas, was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Friday.
Khweis, from Alexandria, Virginia, was convicted on terrorism charges earlier this year. Khweis traveled to Daesh-controlled territory in Iraq and Syria in December 2015, even obtaining an official membership card. But he found life there distasteful and escaped after a few months.
He surrendered in northern Iraq to Kurdish forces, who broadcast his capture around the world.
The vast majority of people charged in US courts with Daesh-related terrorism offenses ran afoul of sting operations in which the suspects thought they had made a connection with the terrorist group, only to find out that their supposed contacts were actually undercover informants or agents.
The unique nature of Khweis’ crime merited a strong sentence, said prosecutor Dennis Fitzpatrick, who argued for 35 years in prison.
“This defendant executed his plan to perfection. He got into the Islamic State (Daesh). He was in their machinery. He was providing himself and his services to the organization,” Fitzpatrick said.
Once he made it to the Daesh territory in late 2015, he “became the consummate utility player for the Islamic State (Daesh),” said prosecutor Raj Parekh.
“When ISIS (Daesh) needed his blood, he allowed them to draw it. When ISIS needed him to cook and clean for wounded soldiers, Mohammed Khweis multitasked and filled that role as well.”
One thing Khweis never did, his lawyers said, was take up arms on behalf of Daesh.
“While he was there, he did not fight. He did not do harm to another human being,” defense attorney John Zwerling said.
Zwerling agreed with the suggestion from prosecutors that Khweis’ case is unique because he is one of the few Americans to actually make it to Daesh territory.
But he said his client deserves a measure of credit for leaving Daesh on his own, and cooperating with authorities by providing them intelligence on the group’s inner workings.
He also helped authorities identify four Westerners who had left Daesh with intentions to do harm in their home countries.
“He provided valuable, actionable intelligence,” Zwerling said. “And the government has given him zero credit for any of it.”
Zwerling argued it was counterproductive to punish Khweis with decades in prison, because it sends the message to other Americans who might consider abandoning Daesh that they have nothing to look forward to in the US but a prison cell.
Zwerling and defense attorney Jessica Carmichael argued for a five-year sentence.
Khweis did not speak at Friday’s sentencing hearing in US District Court in Alexandria.
In a letter to the court, he apologized for his actions and said: “When I arrived in Syria reality hit me. I couldn’t believe what I had done and where I was at. I hated myself for making the worst decision I ever made in my life.”
Despite a trial in which Khweis took the stand in his own defense, his motivations for joining Daesh remain a mystery.
He testified that he was curious about what life was like in Daesh’s self-proclaimed caliphate, but even his own attorneys acknowledged that Khweis’ testimony was riddled with lies.
“The record is void of what motivated him, what got him to go,” Zwerling said.
Khweis grew up in a middle-class neighborhood in Fairfax County, just outside the nation’s capital, graduating in 2007 from Edison High School.
Before leaving for the Middle east in 2015, he worked as a bus driver for the elderly and disabled in the region’s Metro system.
His parents emigrated from the Middle East and he grew up as a Muslim, but was not particularly religious.
His parents, who attended Friday’s hearing, declined to comment.
“There is no event, no instigator, no friend ... no suicidal ideation that radicalized you,” Judge Liam O’Grady said before imposing his sentence, “but there is no question you did radicalize.”
American who joined, escaped Daesh jailed for 20 years
American who joined, escaped Daesh jailed for 20 years
President Donald Trump appeals his New York hush money conviction
- Trump’s lawyers filed a notice of appeal Wednesday, asking the state’s mid-level appeals court to overturn his conviction
- Trump’s lawyers will have an opportunity to expand on their grievances in subsequent court filings
NEW YORK: President Donald Trump has appealed his hush money conviction, seeking to erase the verdict that made him the first person with a criminal record to win the office.
Trump’s lawyers filed a notice of appeal Wednesday, asking the state’s mid-level appeals court to overturn his conviction last May on 34 counts of falsifying business records.
The case, involving an alleged scheme to hide a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels during Trump’s 2016 Republican campaign, was the only one of his criminal cases to go to trial.
A notice of appeal starts the appeals process in New York. Trump’s lawyers will have an opportunity to expand on their grievances in subsequent court filings.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which prosecuted the case, will have a chance to respond in court papers. A message seeking comment was left with the office Wednesday.
Trump hired a new legal team from the firm Sullivan & Cromwell LLP to handle the appeal, spearheaded by the firm’s co-chair Robert J. Giuffra Jr.
Giuffra and four other lawyers from his firm stepped in after the president tabbed his two main defense lawyers, Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, for top positions in his administration’s Justice Department.
“President Donald J. Trump’s appeal is important for the rule of law, New York’s reputation as a global business, financial and legal center, as well as for the presidency and all public officials,” Giuffra said in a statement provided by a Trump spokesperson.
Norwegian mass murderer Breivik loses prison condition case
- “The Court of Appeal considers that the restrictions are sufficiently justified,” the three judges said in their ruling
- They also said that the prison authorities have put in place sufficient measures to compensate for his relative isolation in prison
OSLO: A Norwegian court on Wednesday rejected an appeal brought by right-wing extremist and mass killer Anders Behring Breivik, who claims his prison conditions are a violation of human rights.
Breivik, who killed 77 people in July 2011, has regularly complained about his prison conditions, despite them including three private cells, two Guinea pigs, a flat-screen television and a video game console.
Claiming that he has been “treated like an animal,” Breivik has sued the Norwegian state on several occasions in a bid to get improvements to compensate for his relative isolation.
He has argued that this isolation constitutes a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which prohibits “inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
His case was struck down by a district court in February, after which he appealed.
“The Court of Appeal considers that the restrictions are sufficiently justified by the risk of violence that persists,” the three judges said in their ruling Wednesday.
They also said that the prison authorities have put in place sufficient measures to compensate for his relative isolation in prison.
The court also dismissed Breivik’s appeal for an easing of the filtering of his mail, for which he also invoked the ECHR on the right to correspondence.
On July 22, 2011, Breivik set off a bomb near government offices in Oslo, killing eight people, before gunning down 69 others, mostly teens, at a Labour Party youth wing summer camp on the island of Utoya.
He said he had killed his victims because they embraced multiculturalism.
He was sentenced in 2012 to 21 years in prison, which can be extended as long as he is considered a threat.
More Indians losing hope of improved quality of life under Modi, survey shows
- More than 37% respondents in pre-budget survey said they expect overall quality of life for ordinary people to deteriorate over next year
- Nearly two-thirds of survey respondents said inflation had remained unchecked and prices had gone up since Modi became prime minister
NEW DELHI: More Indians are becoming less hopeful about their quality of life as stagnant wages and higher living costs cloud future prospects, a survey showed, in disappointing news for Prime Minister Narendra Modi ahead of this week’s annual budget.
More than 37 percent of respondents in a pre-budget survey said they expect the overall quality of life for ordinary people to deteriorate over the next year, the highest such percentage since 2013, findings released by polling agency C-Voter showed on Wednesday. Modi has been prime minister since 2014.
C-Voter said it polled 5,269 adults across Indian states for this survey. Persistent eye-watering food inflation has squeezed Indian household budgets and crimped spending power, and the world’s fifth-largest economy is expected to post its slowest pace of growth in four years.
Nearly two-thirds of survey respondents said inflation had remained unchecked and that prices had gone up since Modi became prime minister, while more than half said the rate of inflation had “adversely” affected their quality of life.
Modi, in the nation’s annual budget this week, is expected to announce measures to shore up faltering economic growth, lift disposable incomes and placate a stretched middle class.
Nearly half of respondents said their personal income had remained the same over the last year while expenses rose, while nearly two-thirds said rising expenses had become difficult to manage, the survey showed.
Despite world-beating economic growth, India’s job market offers insufficient opportunities for its large youthful population to earn regular wages.
In the last budget, India earmarked nearly $24 billion to be spent over five years on various schemes to create jobs but those programs have not yet been implemented as discussions on the details drag on.
German government says criticism of Musk does not mean exit from X
- “It has no repercussions,” said the spokesperson
BERLIN: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s sharp criticism of Elon Musk’s backing of right-wing parties in the European Union does not influence how the German government uses his social media platform X, a government spokesperson said on Wednesday.
“It has no repercussions. Our statement still holds that we are looking at and weighing up what is happening there case by case,” said the spokesperson in a press conference, adding there was no pre-defined “red line.”
Scholz on Tuesday described Musk’s backing of right-wing parties in the EU as “really disgusting,” saying it was hindering democracy in the bloc.
UN refugee agency taking ‘precautionary measures’ amid US aid freeze
- The UNHCR said it did not yet have “specific information” about how the Trump administration’s decision would impact the agency
- The spokesperson said the precautionary measures being implemented “touch upon travel, workshops, supply procurement and the hiring of new colleagues“
GENEVA: The UN refugee agency said Wednesday that it was taking a string of temporary measures as it faces “funding uncertainty” following a US decision to freeze virtually all foreign aid.
“We have taken note of the decision by the new US administration to pause allocation of funds to foreign assistance programs,” a UNHCR spokesperson told AFP in an email.
“While we are still assessing the impact of the new US administration’s decision, including possible exceptions, we are implementing a series of temporary precautionary measures to mitigate the impact of this funding uncertainty.”
President Donald Trump on returning TO office last week ordered a 90-day pause to review assistance by the United States, the world’s largest foreign aid donor in dollar terms.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio followed up by freezing virtually all funding, though he specified exemptions for emergency food, as well as military assistance to Israel and Egypt.
In a follow-up memo on Tuesday after an outcry from aid groups, Rubio clarified that other “humanitarian assistance” besides food would also be exempt during the review period.
The UNHCR said it did not yet have “specific information” about how the Trump administration’s decision would impact the agency, which has long counted the United States as by far its biggest donor.
In 2024, the United States contributed $2.05 billion to the UNHCR’s total budget of over $10.6 billion.
The spokesperson said the precautionary measures being implemented “touch upon travel, workshops, supply procurement and the hiring of new colleagues.”
The UNHCR noted that it had “worked closely with the United States for decades.”
“We are looking forward to engaging actively and constructively with the US government as a trusted partner,” the spokesperson said.
“Our focus is to maximize the impact, cost-effectiveness, and efficiency of our operations around the globe, with the aim of saving lives, protecting families fleeing war and persecution, fostering stability in unstable places, advancing self-reliance, and reducing dependency on humanitarian aid.”
UNHCR is not the only UN agency feeling the burn.
The World Health Organization said last week that it was reviewing its priorities after Trump ordered the full withdrawal of the United States, traditionally the agency’s largest donor.
WHO was “freezing recruitment, except in the most critical areas” and was dramatically cutting back on travel expenditures, the organization’s chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a letter sent to staff on Thursday.
Tedros said the UN health agency hoped the new administration would reconsider its decision, noting that it was open to dialogue on preserving the relationship.
