‘I’m still your sister’
Woman discusses what led to her sibling being charged with providing support to ISIS
Lori Sally didn’t see or hear from her sister for months. Sally knew something was wrong, but she wasn’t sure exactly what.
It wasn’t until early 2017 that Sally learned that Samantha Elhassani was in Syria. “It wasn’t that shocking, but I was just really scared and just really sad. I mean, really sad,” Sally said. “It just broke my heart that she would do something like that, especially with her kids.”
Sally’s worries turned to how to get her sister and, most importantly, Elhassani’s four children back to the U.S., she said. She didn’t know who to turn to for help or what would happen to Elhassani if she returned.
In July 2018, a military cargo transport plane brought Elhassani and her children to Gary. The children were placed with the Department of Child Services, while their mother was taken into custody.
Elhassani has pleaded not guilty to federal charges accusing her of conspiracy to provide material support to the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS, and aiding and abetting individuals in providing material support to the Islamic State group.
Thomas Durkin, one of the attorneys appointed to represent Elhassani, said her case is “quite different from any
other national security case” he’s handled before. He’s argued that Samantha Elhassani’s charges are a proxy case for her now-deceased husband, Moussa Elhassani, who forced her to go to Syria.
The government, however, said that Samantha Elhassani is being prosecuted for her own role. She knew what she was doing but brought her children into a dangerous situation anyway, prosecutors said.
A hearing in Elhassani’s case is scheduled for July 11 in Hammond.
Recently, Sally cried as she sat and rewatched videos, which have not been made public, that prosecutors said show Moussa Elhassani, who is off camera, direct Samantha Elhassani’s son as he holds a rifle and a suicide belt. In August 2017, the boy appeared in an ISIS propaganda video, according to court records.
The children, Samantha Elhassani, Sally and the rest of their family are going to need support after everything they’ve gone through, Alexandra Bain, director of a Canadian nonprofit called Families Against Violent Extremism, or FAVE, said.
While FAVE has helped Sally in her efforts with her sister, there aren’t many resources for family members like her to turn to in these types of situations, Bain said.
“This affects families deeply,” Bain said. “...They’re always stigmatized, they’re always traumatized.”
Attempts by the Post-Tribune to contact Samantha Elhassani’s parents and the father of her son shown in the videos were unsuccessful.
Sally allowed the Post-Tribune to review recordings, screenshots and other material from what she’s experienced in trying to help her sister and her children, stretching back years before they went to Syria.
Sometimes, Sally said she wonders if “maybe we’d be in a different situation today, if anybody had taken notice of anything.”
Family business
Samantha Elhassani, 33, and Sally, 32, grew up together in rural Arkansas and Oklahoma and were raised in the Jehovah’s Witness faith, according to Sally.
While Sally is 13 months younger, she always considered herself to be Elhassani’s older sister, she said.
“I’ve always been there for her when she had trouble or when she needed advice,” Sally said.
The sisters relied on each other and had a close bond. Growing up, Sally said she “cannot remember a time in my life when my sister wasn’t there.”
“I love my sister. She was my it. She was my everything,” Sally said.
As they got older, Sally and Elhassani supported each other throughout relationships they each had. Sally met the Elhassani family first. She married — and is now spearated from — one of Moussa Elhassani’s brothers, who she had two children with, well before Samantha Elhassani became involved with the family.
Shortly after Samantha Elhassani met Moussa Elhassani, the couple married in 2012 and lived in Elkhart with their daughter, who they had together, and a son Samantha Elhassani had from a previously relationship.
The Elhassani family owned multiple businesses in various states, public court records show. Sally said she helped with some of the businesses, including one called Viabox, also known as Viaddress, in Elkhart, which the government said was a shipping business owned by one of Moussa Elhassani’s brothers.
Investigators started looking at the businesses, Sally said. In 2015, the FAA proposed $70,020 in civil penalties against Viabox for reportedly sending flammable aerosol automotive products through FedEx to Canada, according to a news release.
Elkhart Police Department took multiple fraud reports related to the business, which the Post-Tribune obtained through a public records request. Some were made from as far away as Australia, and property listed in the reports included electronics, gun magazines and gun mounting lights, salt water fishing reels, porcelain statues and clothing, among other items.
Many of the reports were determined to be unfounded or inactive/suspended, records show. Those two labels are used when officers “have worked the case as far as they were able to, or if the case is transferred to another agency,” Lt. Travis Snider, Elkhart police spokesman, said in an email.
As Sally distanced herself from the family and their work, she said her sister “went all out working for the business.” Samantha and Moussa Elhassani worked together managing the Elkhart branch of Viabox, prosecutors said. A January 2014 post on Samantha Elhassani’s Facebook page states what time people should meet at one of their warehouses.
The Post-Tribune attempted to contact possible employees from the company, but they either did not respond or declined to comment.
‘I’m still your sister’
Sally said she and her sister began to talk less as Samantha Elhassani got more involved with the Elhassani family and the business.
The last time Sally saw her sister and nephew in person before learning that they were in Syria was in late 2014. After that, Sally last messaged with sister in September 2015.
“How have you been? sorry it took me so long to respond, I don’t get on Facebook much,” messages sent from Samantha Elhassani’s account state.
Sally had heard her sister might be in trouble, and she tried to arrange to meet up with Samantha Elhassani in Texas, but it didn’t pan out, she said.
In October, Sally messaged her sister to wish her a happy birthday, but she didn’t get a response. In 2016, Sally asked her sister if she was getting her messages and if they could meet.
But in 2015, Samantha Elhassani, her husband, her brother-inlaw and Elhassani’s two children at the time crossed the border into ISIS-controlled territory in Syria through Turkey, according to the government.
Before they went, Samantha Elhassani helped her husband, Moussa Elhassani, and brotherin-law “secure funding and tactical gear” after learning in November 2014 that the two wanted to go to fight for ISIS.
Once Sally learned they were in Syria, she called anyone she could think of, including government agencies, law enforcement and politicians, for help.
“It was a fight every step of the way,” Sally said.
Bain and Sally got in touch, and FAVE tried to help Sally connect with resources she needed. FAVE, a volunteer organization, has done the same for other families whose relatives have been exposed to or joined violent extremist groups, linking those families to lawyers, social workers, mental health providers and other contacts, Bain said.
Bain said that “Lori’s focus has always been on the kids.” Sally said her thought was, “Just let the kids come home. They’re innocent. They don’t need to die.”
While they were in Syria, Sally tried to get any information that she could about where her sister and her children were and how they were doing. Their communication was limited and inconsistent as they tried to talk quickly.
One of the times they talked, Sally thought someone was making a prank phone call. She and the caller went back and forth saying, “Hello?”
“Oh, Sam?” Sally said, and the sisters laughed together before catching up.
In January 2017, Sally sent an email saying, “I’m still your sister and I’m here for you.”
An email from Samantha Elhassani in February 2017 read, “I’m really scared from all of this and have been scared for 2 years. You wouldn’t believe what we had been through. I love you so much.”
Going forward
Sally doesn’t think her sister went to Syria “for any existential purpose,” she said. Instead, she thinks it might have had to do with money or “permanence.”
Sally has talked a bit with her sister while she’s been in custody. She is also still waiting to find out where Samantha Elhassani’s children will go. Sally hopes she might be able to take care of them.
Samantha Elhassani is scheduled to go trial in January in Hammond’s federal court. Durkin said in an email that he doesn’t expect her trial to be that different than any other type of case, “with the exception that there will be considerable pretrial litigation over classified evidence.”
Durkin has experience with terrorism cases. The Wall Street Journal wrote an article about him in 2016 titled “A terror suspect’s best home in court.” Durkin has also represented detainees at Guantanamo Bay. And he was the attorney for Adel Dauod, who was recently sentenced to 16 years in prison after he attempted to detonate a car bomb outside a downtown Chicago bar.
Part of what makes Samantha Elhassani’s case unique is that “while her husband and his brother apparently joined ISIS once they got to Syria, Samantha never did join or otherwise remotely support ISIS,” Durkin said.
Samantha Elhassani spent “two horrific years” in ISIScontrolled Raqqa before she went to Syrian camps, where she was interviewed by the FBI interviewed multiple times, according to her attorneys.
Durkin said he stands by his belief that Samantha Elhassani needs mental and emotional help for the trauma she experienced. The defense filed an “emergency” motion in December to try to get Elhassani released so she could receive treatment that her attorneys said was not available to her in custody. A judge denied the request.
Sally hopes that her sister and her children do get the help they need. But in Sally’s opinion, Samantha Elhassani should be in prison right now.
“I want the best for her but I think that’s where she needs to be at,” Sally said.