A judge sentenced him to 30 years in prison. The prosecution said Mohamud’s prior correspondence with two individuals suspected of working for al-Qaeda was evidence he was looking for “the right people” - and that, had the FBI not intervened, he might have found them. In court, Mohamud’s lawyers attempted an entrapment defense, arguing that their client never indicated he wanted to attack Portland before the FBI contacted him. Mohamud did not respond to letters sent to him in prison.) The FBI, the Department of Justice, and Mohamud’s attorneys declined to answer detailed questions. (Unless otherwise stated, the facts in this article come from the voluminous public record for his criminal case, including the 2,700-page trial transcript, as well as firsthand interviews with 11 people with knowledge of the case. Mohamud went to trial three years after his arrest. Youssef and Hussein were undercover FBI agents. There was no secret council of militant leaders seeking a gifted Somali-American teenager to wage jihad. The bomb Mohamud had tried to detonate was fake. After the third or fourth time, the 17 arresting officers started to laugh. He could hear Hussein screaming, “Allahu akbar!” - God is great - over and over again. As he pressed the last button, he heard a group of people running at him. “Why don’t you get out of the car and try again?” Hussein said. The teenager dialed the detonator number. The explosives expert handed the teen a cell phone. As the three left the scene, Mohamud said he thought he saw his mother heading toward the ceremony.Īfter dropping off Youssef at the train station, Hussein and Mohamud parked in a nearby garage. Youssef picked up Mohamud and Hussein in a different car and drove them to Union Station. Mohamud flipped the toggle switch attached to the detonator, arming the bomb. They turned on the TV and watched the crowds march into Pioneer Square under light rain.Īround sunset, Hussein and Mohamud drove the bomb to the chosen corner. The three headed to a hotel in downtown Portland, where they prayed and ordered a pizza. On the front seat was the detonation mechanism: a cell phone, a 9-volt battery, and a switch. Hussein opened the side door, revealing six 55-gallon drums filled with fertilizer. They met with Hussein and headed to a parking spot near the Comcast building, where the operators showed Mohamud a large white van. 26, 2010, Youssef picked up Mohamud from a friend’s house in Portland. Did you think that you could invade a Muslim land and we would not invade you?” “As your soldiers target our civilians, we will not fail to do so. “For as long as you threaten our security, your people will not remain safe,” Mohamud said. He began to read his manifesto to the camera. The teenager put on a white robe, a white-and-red headdress, and a camouflage jacket. Later that day, the cell returned to Mohamud’s apartment in Corvallis to record his farewell video. The teenager obeyed - and a small explosion rattled the last yellow leaves on the trees. Hussein handed Mohamud a cell phone and asked him to dial a number. They placed the bomb in a tree and walked away. There, Hussein showed Mohamud a smaller version of the device: a backpack filled with three pounds of explosives. After meeting at the coffee shop, the group drove to a remote spot in the countryside. Hussein and Youssef designed and built the bomb. Hussein and Youssef flew to Oregon to meet the teen, whom they called “a jewel in the rough.” Together, the three conceived a plot to detonate an 1,800-pound bomb during Portland’s Christmas tree lighting ceremony, a yearly Black Friday tradition in Pioneer Square, the city’s main plaza. The would-be terrorists had met earlier that year, after one of Mohamud’s friends from the mosque recommended him to the Council, a secret jihadi organization that scoured the globe for potential operators. The cell had three members: Hussein, an explosives expert Youssef, a businessman turned jihadi recruiter and Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a 19-year-old Somali-American college student. 4, 2010, a small cell of al-Qaeda operatives convened at a Starbucks in Corvallis, Oregon, to review the details of their plot to kill 25,000 people in downtown Portland.
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