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November 30, 2005

US: Muslim is Jailed - Terrorist or Not

A bizarre case, concerning a bizarre individual, was wrapped up yesterday in a US District Court in Washington State, according to The News Tribune. 32 year old Zaid Mu'min, a Muslim convert who used to be known as James Harris, was sentenced to 57 months in a federal prison for illegally possessing weeapons.

The judge in the case, Ronald Leighton said that he was unsure if Mu'min was a family man or a would-be terrorist. "Clearly this case represents a picture in contrasts," he said. "I don't know who the real Mr Mu'min is."

After the sentencing, assistant US Attorney Bill Redkey said: "I'm inclined to think he's got an active fantasy life...My view is that 57 months in prison will be enough to find out who the real Mr. Mu'min is and to deter others from indulging in active fantasies."

The case began on November 18, 2004, when Mu'min's house in Puyallup, Seattle, was raided by federal agents as part of an investigation by the Seattle Joint Terrorism Task Force.

The raids and subsequent arrests are described by King5.com (Free Registration Site).

17 Seattle and Tacoma area residents were arrested on weapons, bank fraud and immigration charges. Though arrested on the same day, their charges were laidout in separate cases. At the house of Zaid Mu'min, who had apparently become a convert after going to prison on a drug conviction, a rifle, three guns, explosives manuals, and literature on snipers, urban combat and how to kill with poisons.

Police had received a tip off that Mu'min was teaching others how to fire a Renton gun, even though as a felon he was prohibited from having a gun.

At Mu'min's court case, he was alternately described by defence and prosecution witnesses as a loving family man and father of three who had suffered serious sexual abuse in his youth, or as a dangerous Muslim terrorist obsessed with ideas of jihad.

A former convert to Islam, 44-yr old Peter Coleman, had been a radical Islamist with affiliations to the Nation of Islam. After 9/11 and seeing how his co-religionists did not help his family while he was in prison, Coleman became an FBI informer.

He said he first met Mu'min in a barbershop in summer 2002, and heard him make conversations about "taking over" the Jewish neighbourhood, as well as in other subsequent conversations. This South Seattle barbershop, which was also targeted in raids last year, was where, according to Redkey, radical Muslims talked "jihad smack".

Mu'min's wife Jacqueline had declared that the guns, an AK-47 rifle with scope, a Ruger .22 pistol, a .45 Glock pistol and a Browning.38 pistol had belonged to her.

Obviously Judge Leighton did not agree.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at November 30, 2005 12:06 PM

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