Five charged as US raid on desert camp finds children in squalor
FIVE people have been arrested in New Mexico after police raided a remote desert encampment and found 11 children living among potential Muslim extremists, in “filthy” conditions.
Three women – the mothers of the children, aged between one and 15 – and two men were charged with child abuse.
One of the men, Siraj Wahhaj, 39, was wanted in his home state of Georgia for questioning over the disappearance of his three-year-old son, Abdul Ghani. Wahhaj had told the boy’s mother that he wanted to perform an exorcism on Abdul, who is disabled, because he believed he was possessed by the devil, according to documents made public in a court filing yesterday. Both father and son were last seen in December. The boy’s mother told police her child suffered from seizures.
Wahhaj’s relatives, including his father, an imam at a mosque in Brooklyn, New York, launched a social media campaign to try to find the missing boy. The toddler was not found in the raid.
Police went in after the sheriff in Taos, New Mexico, was forwarded a note from someone on the property, which read: “We are starving and need food and water.”
Jerry Hogrefe, sheriff of Taos County, said: “I knew we couldn’t wait on another agency to step up. We had to check this out as soon as possible.”
The sheriff described planning “a tactical approach for our own safety because we had learned the occupants were most likely heavily armed and considered extremist”. He and his men were met by Wahhaj and his colleague, Lucas Morten, who were armed with an AR-15 rifle and four pistols.
The women – Jany Leveille, believed to be Wahhaj’s second wife, and his sisters Hujrah and Subhannah – eventually gave themselves up. Subhannah is married to Morten.
When officials finally entered the makeshift compound, they found what one officer called “the saddest living conditions and poverty I have seen”.
Mr Hogrefe told ABC News the children were hungry, thirsty and filthy. “I’ve been a cop for 30 years. I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said.
Police described the compound as a small underground trailer covered by plastic, with no running water or electricity.
All five adults were detained, charged with child abuse. The children were taken away for medical tests.
Morten was additionally charged with harbouring a fugitive, and Wahhaj was held, without bail, over the Georgia arrest warrant for child abduction.