Guilty verdicts returned against all 3 defendants in Islamic State trial

MINNEAPOLIS — A jury has found three young Minneapolis-area men guilty of conspiring to support a foreign terrrorist organization and conspiracy to commit murder abroad in one of the largest Islamic Staterelated prosecutions to reach federal trial.

The three defendants — Abdirahman Daud, 22; Mohamed Farah, 22; and Guled Omar, 21 — now face sentences of up to life in federal prison.

As the verdicts were read to a hushed federal courtroom in Minneapolis on Friday afternoon, relatives of the three young men could be heard weeping in the gallery, while other spectators left the courtroom in tears. Omar placed one hand over his face and his attorney, Glenn Bruder, quietly shook his head.

On a list of separate charges, the jury found Farah guilty of making false statements to federal authorities but found Daud not guilty of perjury.

After the verdicts were announced, Judge Michael Davis asked each defendant in turn: “Do you understand what the verdict was?” Omar replied: “That’s correct.” The verdicts capped three days of deliberations by the 12-member jury and a three-week trial that featured dramatic, contentious testimony by a colleague of the three who became a paid government informant and by two other friends who pleaded guilty and assisted federal prosecutors. The proceedings were interrupted several times by disputes that broke out in the packed courtroom, apparently between Somali-American families who found themselves on opposite sides of the case.

The case was the nation’s biggest federal Islamic State-related prosecution so far, and just the third to reach trial, with the result that it was closely watched around the country by prosecutors, civil libertarians and terrorism scholars. Of particular interest was the large number of defendants charged and their connections to friends who had succeeded in leaving the United States and joining the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.

When court adjourned, relatives and supporters of the defendants held an emotional, impromptu news conference on the plaza outside the downtown Minneapolis courthouse.

“They are grieving, they will appeal. They believe they are innocent,” said one representative speaking on behalf of the families.