Brownsburg man found guilty of being a terrorist sympathizer
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – A 20-year-old Brownsburg man arrested in 2016 for being a terrorist sympathizer was convicted Wednesday after he pleaded guilty to the charge.
An attorney for Akram Musleh, who was 18 when arrested in June 2016 at the Greyhound bus station in Indianapolis, had initially told reporters the case against his client was trumped up out of the nation’s fear of another terrorist attack.
Before Judge Sarah Evans Barker on Thursday in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis, Musleh agreed to plead guilty to a grand jury’s indictment on attempting to provide material support or resources to a designated foreign terrorist. Court documents from Thursday’s hearing did not indicate when Musleh would be sentenced.
Musleh was turned over to the U.S. Marshals Service after the hearing. He is listed as being in a jail in Leitchfield, Kentucky, online records show. His attorneys have previously said Musleh has been in a Kentucky jail since his arrest.
Federal documents alleged Musleh repeatedly tried to purchase flights overseas, expressed his interest to be in an Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) propaganda video and purchased an ISIL flag. In June 2014, ISIL changed its name to the Islamic State group.
Court documents indicated Musleh first came on the radar of investigators in 2013 when he posted videos to YouTube of Anwar Al-Alwaki, a Yemeni-American Islamist militant, preacher and imam who died in 2011.
FBI officials met with Musleh and school officials at Brownsburg High School on Dec. 11, 2013, to dissuade him from “engaging in radical extremism.”
Nine months later, Musleh purchased the ISIL flag online and appeared in a photograph with it.
In April 2015, the Brownsburg Police Department responded to Williams Park, where it had been alleged that people were asking kids at the park if they wanted to join Daesh, which was another name for the Islamic State group. The FBI determined that Musleh was one of those people.
On June 23, 2016, Musleh attempted to travel to Istanbul. Customs and Border Protection interviewed Musleh and did not let him travel based on his passport due to Turkey requiring a minimum of six months validity on passports. The FBI searched his baggage and electronic devices and found a journal with quotes from individuals with known terrorist times, including Osama bin Laden.
