The U.S. government has prosecuted more than 800 people for terrorism since the 9/11 attacks. Most of them never committed an act of violence.
Once considered so dangerous by the U.S. Department of Justice that he was kept in solitary confinement for more than six months, Abdulrahman Farhane, a Moroccan-born U.S. citizen, will be released today from a Brooklyn halfway house, not far from where he once operated an Islamic bookstore.
Farhane will be the 417th defendant to be released following a conviction on terrorism-related charges after the 9/11 attacks. He pleaded guilty to his role in what the government described as a plot to send money to fighters in Afghanistan and Chechnya. Farhane was sentenced to 13 years in prison.
His case was a touchstone in the war on terror, because it involved one of the earliest investigations after 9/11 as well as two informants and two FBI agents who all would become notable figures in their own rights.
Farhane, a father of six children whose House of Knowledge on Atlantic Avenue sold religious books, bumper sticks, and various gadgets, came to the FBI’s attention in the days after 9/11 when an informant claimed the bookstore owner had “radical views of Islam.” The informant, Mohamed Alanssi, was a Yemeni man who had worked at the U.S. Embassy in Sana in the 1970s. He had a trail of debts and a history of failed businesses in Yemen and the United States, and his handler at the FBI was agent Robert Fuller (who later played a role in the extraordinary rendition of Canadian Maher Arar and oversaw the controversial FBI sting involving the so-called Newburgh Four).
Alanssi discussed with Farhane the possibility of sending money to Afghanistan and Chechnya. Alanssi made it clear in these conversations that he wanted the money sent to terrorists, and Farhane wanted to help, according to FBI recordings. (Farhane later told the FBI in an interview that “he did not want to be rude” to his customer.) Farhane then introduced Alanssi to Tarik Shah, a jazz bassist who played at Bill Clinton’s inauguration, telling the FBI informant that Shah could help him smuggle money out of the country.
The FBI informant nurtured his relationships with Farhane and Shah, but couldn’t push the case forward. After two years, the FBI introduced a second informant, an ex-convict and former Black Panther named Saeed Torres (who also went by the name Theodore Shelby). Torres, who was later featured in the documentary “(T)ERROR,” rented an apartment in a building in the Bronx owned by Shah’s mother, and recorded conversations with Shah in which the jazz bassist obsessed about martial arts and his ambitions to train Muslims in hand-to-hand combat. Torres then introduced Shah and one of his friends, a doctor named Rafiq Sabir, to an undercover FBI agent, who led them in a pledge to Al Qaeda. The agent, Ali Soufan, later spoke out publicly about CIA torture and started a security consulting company that does business with the Qatari government.
As the FBI was building its case against Farhane, Shah, Sabir, and a Washington, D.C., taxi driver named Mahmud Faruq Brent, Alanssi publicly divorced himself from the FBI. In November 2004, he sent a fax to Fuller, his FBI handler, reading: “Why you don’t care about my life and my family’s life?”
Alanssi, wearing a suit and tie, doused himself in gasoline and walked up to the northwest guardhouse of the White House. He asked the Secret Service agents to deliver a message to President George W. Bush. The guards turned him away. Alanssi then set himself on fire, burning about 30 percent of his body.
The Justice Department first indicted Shah, Sabir, and Brent, and then later added Farhane to the indictment, based on recordings in which Farhane discussed sending money overseas. Farhane and Shah were accused of conspiring to transfer money to be used to buy communications equipment for terrorists. Farhane was also charged with making false statements to the FBI to cover up his involvement, according to the government.
During his first appearance in court, Farhane told the judge: “I’m not guilty. I didn’t do anything. This is my country. I love my country.”
Farhane’s lawyer at the time, Michael Hueston, added: “He had no run-ins with the law until Mr. Alanssi came along.”
While Farhane maintained that he was not involved in terrorism, he pleaded guilty to the charges to avoid a longer prison sentence. Shah and Brent also pleaded guilty, and received sentences of 13 and 15 years, respectively. Sabir was found guilty at trial and received 25 years.
Farhane is the first of the group to be released. Shah and Brent are scheduled to be released from federal prison next summer.
Top photo: The Al-Farooq mosque, center, on Atlantic Avenue in the Brooklyn borough of New York on March 5, 2003.
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The U.S. government has prosecuted more than 800 people for terrorism since the 9/11 attacks. Most of them never committed an act of violence.
We are the worst, deadliest, and most proficient terrorists on the planet.
Whatta racket.
Where did I go wrong?
So the jazz bassist who played at Clinton’s inauguration eventually ended up pledging allegiance to Al Qaida? I imagine there are a lot of Trump supporters reading this who think that man missed his moment.
I do think about what has happened to the people entrapped . Thanks for the story. I pray for the innocent wrongly accused and prosecuted. I pray for the Lords justice.
Harry S. Truman’s attorney general had a lifetime of regret for this style of unAmerican and ungodly blacklisting using guilt-by-association. He had the integrity to admit to his mistakes.
Ironically, Bush’s attorneys general are silent about their tyranny of blacklisting innocent Americans – they have no remorse for their evil and unAmerican actions that violated their own oath of office.
Either money is speech or it isn’t. They should be consistent about that. That’s only one problem with the material support statutes. The other is that terror designations are political in nature (not due process based) so the executive is controlling whether something is illegal or not.
money is speech when it pays for speech. hiring a hitman is illegal
http://www.amendmentgazette.com/how-spending-money-became-a-form-of-speech/
I think that’s an excellent point in a broader context. Lacking the benefit of familiarity with this case, I don’t know what “terrorists” they busted this guy for providing financial support. But you would think that a (paid?) informant would have the sense to have chosen an organization universally recognized as such, so I can’t imagine terrorist designations would have played a large part from a legal standpoint. Maybe he even just said, “I want you to get money to my terrorist brothers.” OK, probably not, but he was definitely told the money was for weapons.
Despite my complete dissatisfaction with the methods used by the FBI in counter-terrorism investigations, I find it difficult to feel any sympathy toward this Farhane character. I mean, “he did not want to be rude [to his customer]”?! Yeah, that sounds totes legit… Gimme a flippin’ break! Plus, he owned a “religious bookstore” where he sold scripture next to bumper stickers. (Don’t fret: No one will ever come close to the extent to which Christians have monetized their faith.) Sounds like a class-act, all around – a real trustworthy man. I’m sure he merely accidentally wanted to help supply bloodthirsty Islamists. How dare they lock him away!
C’mon now. I know there are plenty cases of highly questionable terrorism prosecution to write about. Choose better.
Actually, Farhane is (possibly) guilty of a thought crime. Only in this case it’s a thought crime instigated by the government against which he is thought to have committed a crime. That’s why when you use words such as “trustworthy” alarms aren’t set off inside your own head. We’re all O’Brien now. Has it occurred to anyone living outside the circle of exceptionalism that when our tax money goes to slaughter innocents in the Middle East, we are guilty of terrorism? “America is great because America is good!” Ha, ha, ha.
You won’t find many people here who disagree with your general sentiment, least of all me. My point was that he’s not a very sympathetic figure and that cases of more gross investigatorial conduct exist.
” Has it occurred to anyone … that when our tax money goes to slaughter innocents in the Middle East, we are guilty of terrorism?”
My tax money is taken from me against my will, none of the politicians in Washington DC received my vote when they were running for the office they currently hold and I staunchly oppose U.S. military interventionism.
I would therefore argue that I am innocent of the crimes committed by the U.S. government.