IS suspect in US as refugee

An Iraqi man accused of killing for the Islamic State entered the US as a refugee after claiming to be a victim of terrorism, in a case drawing attention to the Trump administration’s criticism of the resettlement program’s vetting process.

AN IRAQI man accused of killing for the Islamic State entered the US as a refugee after claiming to be a victim of terrorism, in a case drawing attention to the Trump administration’s criticism of the resettlement program’s vetting process.

Omar Abdulsattar Ameen, 45, was arrested in California on Wednesday and will be extradited to Iraq under a treaty with that nation, officials said.

He made his first appearance in federal court in Sacramento after his arrest in the state capital.

Ameen (pictured) left Iraq and fled in 2012 to Turkey, where he applied to be accepted as a refugee to the US, according to court documents.

He was granted that status in June 2014. That same month, prosecutors say he returned to Iraq, where he killed a police officer in the town of Rawah after it fell to the Islamic State.

Five months later, Ameen travelled to the US to be resettled as a refugee.

Ameen was arrested by the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force based on a warrant issued in May by an Iraqi federal court in Baghdad.

Ameen could face execution for the “organised killing by an armed group”, according to Iraqi documents filed in US federal court.

Benjamin Galloway, one of Ameen’s public defenders, said he had only 10 minutes to meet with his client prior to his initial court appearance, and lawyers hadn’t decided whether to contest that Ameen is the man who is wanted by Iraqi authorities.

Ameen did not disclose his membership of two terrorist groups when he later applied for a green card in the US, officials said.

The Trump administration has sharply criticised the Obama-era resettlement program for not doing enough to keep out terrorists.

The State Department said that additional checks had since been implemented.

Seamus Hughes, of George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, said most IS cases in the US involved US-born citizens and that the case was rare but illustrated holes in the system.

According to resettlement agencies in the United States, the US vetting process is one of the world’s toughest that has allowed in 3 million refugees since 1975 with not one arrested for carrying out a lethal terror attack on US soil.