Twin Cities Islamic State suspect pleads guilty

MINNEAPOLIS Hanad Musse, one of seven defendants charged with conspiring to leave the United States to fight alongside terrorists in Syria, pleaded guilty in federal court in Minneapolis Wednesday.

“I committed a terrorist act, and I’m guilty of it,” Musse told U.S. District Judge Michael Davis at the end of the hearing.

Musse, 19, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to provide material support and resources to the Islamic State group. He faces up to 15 years in prison, but his attorneys will argue for supervised release of less time. A sentencing date has not been set. Musse, 19, will be wiling to go into schools and any public venue to speak about his experiences and “to help other people avoid the circumstances he finds himself in,” said Andy Birrell, his attorney. “He’s a thoughtful guy. People who say they did something wrong, you can work with them.”

During the nearly hourlong hearing, Musse, dressed in an orange sweatshirt and pants, stood with his hands clasped behind his back and answered questions candidly from Davis and Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Winter.

“Was that your intent, to give yourself to the organization for any purposes that they needed you for?” Winter asked.

“Yes sir,” Musse replied.

Musse was at first hesitant to implicate his co-defendants in the conspiracy, repeatedly saying, “I speak only for myself, sir,” but eventually admitted that each was involved in the conspiracy as Winter went through the list of names of each of Musse’s co-defendants.

Musse, who attempted to leave the country in November 2014 and again in 2015 before he was stopped by his father, said he was lured by Islamic State propaganda online and through friends, including his cousin Abdi Nur, who successfully left the country in May 2014 to join the Islamic State. He told Davis that he met with alleged co-conspirators as many as 10 times to plan how they would avoid detection by U.S. authorities, get fake passports and leave the country to fight with Islamic State.

“At the time, I thought it was a bunch of freedom fighters,” he said of the terrorist group. “I felt the reason why I wanted to go to Syria was to protect the people of Syria and Iraq and form an Islamic State.”

Davis asked Musse whether he knew “what you’re looking at,” and Musse acknowledged he could be sentenced to as much as 15 years in prison.

“It seems like you’re very knowledgeable about what’s going on over there,” Davis said after Musse described a Kurdish group designated as a terrorist organization and fighting in Turkey, Iraq and Syria.

Musse admitted that he was aware of the Islamic State’s terrorist activities including beheadings, kidnappings and rapes perpetrated through the organization, but said they were not behind his motivation to join the group. And, he admitted, his actions were misguided.

“I made this decision out of confusion,” he said.

“They presented themselves as holy fighters who were there to free the people from oppression and only fought people who are evil, and at the time I thought the Syrian Army and PKK rebels were evil people,” Musse said of the Kurdish organization known as a terrorist group because of its continuing guerrilla attacks on Turkish forces.

Musse admitted that after a failed attempt to fly out of JFK Airport in New York in November 2014 that he wanted to try a new route to Syria, traveling to California and crossing into Mexico on a fake passport. But he before he was stopped by his father, Mustafa Musse, who’d gotten wind of his son’s plans.

“He’s my father,” Musse said. “Every word he says, I have to honor him. I made this decision out of confusion, but truly I am a person who listens to his parents constantly.”

Mustafa Musse, who watched from the back row of the courtroom, declined to comment.

Musse is the first of the seven defendants awaiting trial to plead guilty, although plea negotiations are underway for at least two other defendants, according to multiple sources.

Abdullahi Yusuf, part of a larger conspiracy who was arrested in November, pleaded guilty to similar charges in February. Yusuf, who is now cooperating with the government, awaits sentencing.

The men are among about a dozen young Somali-American men from the Twin Cities who authorities say plotted to join the Islamic State group. Musse, like the others, initially pleaded not guilty after being arrested last April and was scheduled for trial in February 2016. Some men involved in the most recent plot successfully left the country in mid-2014. Two were reported killed in Syria.

(Paul McEnroe contributed to this report.)

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