FBI: Released extremist meets with Lindh
FALLS CHURCH, VA. >> A northern Virginia man convicted nearly a decade ago of supporting the Islamic State group as a teenager has been accused of violating his terms of release by meeting with convicted Taliban supporter John Walker Lindh.
According to court documents, the FBI photographed Ali Shukri Amin meeting with Lindh on three occasions in 2021 for about three hours. The document does not state where the meetings occurred. The meetings violate a condition of Amin's supervised release, which bars him from meeting with known extremists, prosecutors said.
The meetings also could have constituted a violation of Lindh's supervised release when they occurred, but Lindh is no longer subject to supervision, as his term of supervised release expired last year.
It's not entirely clear why authorities used the meeting as a basis to claim a violation against Amin but not against Lindh, given that they both were barred from meeting with extremists.
The court documents show, though, that authorities had reason to be concerned about Amin beyond his meetings with Lindh. Amin, who lives in Dumfries, is also accused of corresponding online with a British individual described as a “known extremist” until that person was arrested in February by British authorities.
In his conversations with the British individual, authorities say Amin provided guidance related to the teachings of two Islamic preachers considered extremists by the FBI, according to the court document.
The document also accuses Amin of using a virtual private network to conceal his online activity and evade the supervision of his parole officer.
Michael Jensen, an investigator with the University of Maryland's National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, said terrorism defendants are assigned to veteran probation officers who devote significant time and energy to helping them transition back into their communities, and it's unusual to petition for revocation of supervised release.
“(I)f a probation officer is petitioning the court to revoke supervised release, then they have significant concerns that the individual is not reintegrating into their community successfully and that they remain a potential threat,” he said.
It is clear, though, that the FBI and other agencies also continue to harbor concerns about Lindh's activity, ideology and continued radicalization after his release from prison in 2019. The court document describing Amin's meetings with Lindh state that Lindh “remains a known extremist and is believed by the FBI to hold extremist ideations.”
Lindh was the first American to face major terrorism charges after the Sept. 11 attacks.