The U.S. Attorney Office
for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania released the below information:
PHILADELPHIA – United
States Attorney William M. McSwain announced that Gaafar Muhammed Ebrahim
Al-Wazer, 25, of Altoona, PA, was ordered detained in federal custody on three
counts of making false statements to Task Force Officers with the Federal
Bureau of Investigation’s Philadelphia Joint Terrorism Task Force.
According to the
Criminal Complaint filed against the defendant and the government’s motion to
detain him, FBI counterterrorism investigators questioned Al-Wazer, a Yemeni
citizen, on May 17, 2016 about his affiliation with the Houthi movement, known
formally as Ansar Allah. Ansar Allah is the armed rebel group that
toppled Yemen’s government and fought in an ongoing civil war there for
years. Al-Wazer denied to the FBI that he was aligned with the Houthi
movement, whose motto is “Allah is the greatest of all, Death to America, Death
to Israel, Curse upon the Jews, Victory to Islam,” and further denied that he
had ever fired a weapon or participated in military or militia training.
To the contrary,
however, the Complaint alleges that a search of Al-Wazer’s Facebook account
revealed numerous postings and photographs in which he extolled and praised
Ansar Allah, its objectives and its fighters who were killed in battle against
the Yemeni government and its Saudi and U.S.-backed forces, and in which
Al-Wazer was armed with automatic weapons (including a rocket-propelled grenade
launcher). Al-Wazer’s Facebook account included a posting of a photograph
of him and others bearing automatic assault rifles and pledging that they would
stay on the path of jihad and wishing death to the United States and Israel and
victory to Islam. In another posting, Al-Wazer again bears a machine gun
in a photograph, which is accompanied by a pledge to Ansar Allah to the
death.
FBI agents arrested
Al-Wazer at his home in Altoona on November 7, 2019. In federal court
today, United States Magistrate Judge Marilyn Heffley found that the defendant
posed a risk of flight and/or a danger to the community and therefore ordered
him detained.
“The defendant was
admitted to this country on a student visa and has availed himself of the
generosity and the educational opportunities that the United States offers to
students from all across the world,” said U.S. Attorney McSwain.
“Al-Wazer is, of course, entitled to hold and lawfully express his political
and religious opinions as freely as anyone else in this country, no matter how
hateful or odious they may be. What he is not entitled to do, however, is
lie about those beliefs when asked about them by counter-terrorism officers in
the course of discharging their duties. I want to thank our partners in
the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force for their continued vigilance.”
“Al-Wazer blatantly
lied to federal agents and these charges are the consequence of his actions,”
said Michael T. Harpster, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Philadelphia
Division. “If people we speak to think there is no downside to deceiving FBI
agents, critical lines of investigation will be compromised and our very
justice system stalled. Our Joint Terrorism Task Force can't afford to be
deterred in this way.”
If convicted, the
defendant faces a maximum possible sentence of five years’ imprisonment, three
years of supervised release, a $250,000 fine, a $100 special assessment, per
count.
The case was
investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Philadelphia Joint Terrorism
Task Force, and is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Nelson
S.T. Thayer, Jr.
An indictment,
information or criminal complaint is an accusation. A defendant is
presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
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