THE US is to seek the extradition of an Algerian-born man currently in custody in Ireland after he was charged in a Pennsylvania court with conspiring with a woman known as “Jihad Jane” to recruit people online for terrorist plots.
A spokesman for the US justice department confirmed to The Irish Timesthat it intends to seek the extradition of Ali Charaf Damache (46) to stand trial in Pennsylvania.
Last Thursday, Mr Damache was charged, along with Mohammad Hassan Khalid, an 18-year-old Pakistani residing in the US, with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists. Mr Damache was also charged with attempted identity theft to facilitate a terrorist plot.
The men were charged as part of the same conspiracy as two American women, Jamie Paulin-Ramirez and Colleen LaRose, who both pleaded guilty to similar charges earlier this year.
In February, LaRose, who used the internet pseudonym “Jihad Jane”, admitted to plotting to kill Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks for depicting the prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog.
The following month, Paulin-Ramirez pleaded guilty to supplying material support to terrorists. Both women are awaiting sentencing in the US.
Mr Damache, Mr Khalid and others “devised and co-ordinated a violent jihad organisation consisting of men and women from Europe and the United States divided into a planning team, a research team, an action team, a recruitment team, and a finance team, some of whom would travel to South Asia for explosives training and return to Europe to wage violent jihad,” the indictment issued on Thursday said. In court papers released last week, prosecutors allege Mr Damache tried to recruit men and women to train with the group known as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. They also allege that he hoped to recruit people to train with Pakistan’s intelligence service, the ISI.
Mr Damache, who allegedly used the name “Theblackflag”, faces up to 45 years in prison if convicted. Mr Khalid, who was arrested in July in Maryland and is in US custody, faces a 15-year term. Yesterday, Mr Khalid pleaded not guilty in a Philadelphia court.
In one instance, Mr Damache is alleged to have sent a message to Mr Khalid in July 2009, asking him to recruit online “some brothers that can travel freely . . . with EU passports . . . and I need some sisters too.” Mr Damache has been in Irish custody since March 2010, when gardaí in Waterford arrested him, Paulin-Ramirez and five others as they investigated the alleged plot to kill Vilks. Paulin-Ramirez was released and returned voluntarily to the US to face charges. Mr Damache was later charged with making a menacing phone call.
Paulin-Ramirez married Mr Damache after she arrived in Ireland with her then seven-year-old son, even though she had never met him, and “the couple began training Ramirez’s minor child in the ways of violent jihad”, according to the US indictment. “[The] indictment, which alleges a terrorist conspiracy involving individuals around the globe who connected via the internet – including a teenager and two women living in America – underscores the evolving nature of violent extremism,” US assistant attorney general Lisa Monaco said.