Prosecutor: Man at compound trained kids for school shooting
TAOS, N.M. » A father arrested at a ramshackle New Mexico compound where 11 children were found living in filth was training youngsters to commit school shootings, prosecutors said in court documents obtained Wednesday.
The allegations against Siraj Ibn Wahhaj came to light as authorities awaited word on whether human remains discovered at the site were those of his missing son, who is severely disabled and went missing in December in Jonesboro, Georgia, near Atlanta.
The documents say Wahhaj was conducting weapons training with assault rifles at the compound near the Colorado border that was raided by authorities Friday.
Prosecutor Timothy Hasson filed the court documents while asking that Wahhaj be held without bail after he was arrested last week with four other adults facing child abuse charges.
“He poses a great danger to the children found on the property as well as a threat to the community as a whole due to the presence of firearms and his intent to use these firearms in a violent
and illegal manner,” Hasson wrote.
Prosecutors did not bring up the school shooting accusation during initial court hearings Wednesday for the abuse suspects. A judge ordered them all held without bond pending further proceedings.
In the court documents, authorities said a foster parent of one of the 11 children removed from the compound had told authorities the child had been trained to use an assault rifle in preparation
for a school shooting.
Taos County Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe previously said adults at the compound were “considered extremist of the Muslim belief.” He did not elaborate, saying it was part of the investigation.
Aleks Kostich of the Taos County Public Defender’s Office questioned the new accusation of a school shooting conspiracy against by Wahhaj, saying the claim was presented with little information beyond the explanation that it came from a foster parent.
Kostich believes prosecutors are not certain about the credibility of the foster parent, whom he has no way of reaching to verify the claim, he said.
The human remains were being analyzed by medical examiners to determine if they are those of Abdulghani Wahhaj, the missing boy.
Earlier this year, his grandfather, Imam Siraj Wahhaj, posted a plea on Facebook for help finding his grandson.
The elder Wahhaj heads the Masjid At-Taqwa in Brooklyn, a mosque that has attracted radical speakers to over the years. He met Mahmud Abouhalima when he came to the site to raise money for Muslims in Afghanistan. Abouhalima later helped bomb the World Trade Center 1993.
In a Georgia arrest warrant, authorities said 39-year-old Siraj Ibn Wahhaj had told his son’s mother that he wanted to perform an exorcism on the child because he believed he was possessed by the devil. He later said he was taking the child to a park and didn’t return.
He is accused in Georgia of kidnapping the boy.