Born in

Mogadishu Mogadishu (, also ; so, Muqdisho or ; ar, مقديشو ; it, Mogadiscio ), locally known as Xamar or Hamar, is the capital and List of cities in Somalia by population, most populous city of Somalia. The city has served as an important port ...

Somalia Somalia, , Osmanya script: 𐒈𐒝𐒑𐒛𐒐𐒘𐒕𐒖; ar, الصومال, aṣ-Ṣūmāl officially the Federal Republic of SomaliaThe ''Federal Republic of Somalia'' is the country's name per Article 1 of thProvisional Constituti ...

Mohammed Abdullah Warsame (b. Affidavit of Ktann Vandenover, in support of pre-trial detention. February 2004) is a

Canadian citizen Canadian nationality law details the conditions in which a person is a national of Canada. With few exceptions, almost all individuals born in the country are automatically citizens at birth. Foreign nationals may naturalize after living in Ca ...

who was arrested in 2003 by American

police The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and t ...

(FBI) in

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

who accused him of attending an

Afghan training camp Afghan may refer to: *Something of or related to Afghanistan, a country in Southern-Central Asia *Afghans, people or citizens of Afghanistan, typically of any ethnicity **Afghan (ethnonym), the historic term applied strictly to people of the Pash ...

and fighting alongside

Taliban The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state (polity), state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalism, Islamic fundamentalist, m ...

forces in the country,

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the Lower house, lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the United States Senate, Senate being ...

, Small Business Committee
Testimony of Janice L. Kephart
, November 17, 2005 and charged him with conspiring to provide support to terrorists.

Life

Warsame emigrated to

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

from

in 1989. In 1995 he married American Fartun Farah in an

arranged marriage Arranged marriage is a type of marital union where the bride and groom are primarily selected by individuals other than the couple themselves, particularly by family members such as the parents. In some cultures a professional matchmaker may be us ...

.Pulse of the

Twin Cities Twin cities are a special case of two neighboring cities or urban centres that grow into a single conurbation – or narrowly separated urban areas – over time. There are no formal criteria, but twin cities are generally comparable in statu ...

,
Mohammed Warsame Detained in Secrecy for One Month
While she lived in Minneapolis, Warsame continued to live and work in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

; twice travelling to the United States for a three-month period to stay with his wife. In 1998, a daughter named Maryam was born to the couple. From 2000-2001, Warsame said he was intrigued by the "utopian" society he had heard existed in Afghanistan, and travelled to the country where he attended two

s using the kunya name ''Abu Maryam''. He is accused of having sent $2000 to a militant he met at one of the camps and teaching English in the camps and at a nearby medical clinic. He is additionally said to have fought

Northern Alliance The Northern Alliance, officially known as the United Islamic National Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan ( prs, جبهه متحد اسلامی ملی برای نجات افغانستان ''Jabha-yi Muttahid-i Islāmi-yi Millī barāyi Nijāt ...

troops twice to stabilise Taliban control of the country, and to have eaten meals with

Osama bin Laden Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden (10 March 1957 – 2 May 2011) was a Saudi-born extremist militant who founded al-Qaeda and served as its leader from 1988 until Killing of Osama bin Laden, his death in 2011. Ideologically a Pan-Islamism ...

.Minnesota

Public Radio Public broadcasting involves radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing ...

Legal experts question secrecy around Warsame case
February 4, 2004 In early 2001, Warsame asked a militant leader if the organisation would pay to bring his wife and child over from the United States, but he was informed that he was being asked to leave, and they would pay his April airfare to return to Canada.MacLeon, Ian.

Ottawa Citizen The ''Ottawa Citizen'' is an English-language daily newspaper owned by Postmedia Network in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. History Established as ''The Bytown Packet'' in 1845 by William Harris (journalist), William Harris, it was renamed the '' ...

,
The warning lights were all blinking red
", February 23, 2008 He reported that he "grew disillusioned" with the militants, and returned home. The following year he moved to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

permanently with his wife and daughter, and enrolled at the

Minneapolis Community and Technical College Minneapolis Community and Technical College (Minneapolis College) is a public community college in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It has one of the most diverse student populations in the state and enrolls nearly 11,100 credit students annually. Minneap ...

, where he also tutored

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

students.

Arrest

He was approached by the U.S.

Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, ...

(FBI) on December 8, 2003, and volunteered to be interviewed, and told them about his time spent in Afghanistan. He was arrested the following day and held in secret detention at Hennepin

County jail A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correct ...

for two weeks, during which police registered him under an anonymous name and didn't allow a

paper trail An audit is an "independent examination of financial information of any entity, whether profit oriented or not, irrespective of its size or legal form when such an examination is conducted with a view to express an opinion thereon.” Auditing ...

when

public defender A public defender is a lawyer appointed to represent people who otherwise cannot reasonably afford to hire a lawyer to defend themselves in a trial. Several countries provide people with public defenders, including the UK, Hungary and Singapore, ...

Dan Scott met with Warsame.Minnesota Public Radio
Terrorism cases: Highly complex and a bit bizarre
July 25, 2005 He was transferred to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, and indicted on January 21, 2004. During this time, he alleges that they tried to convince him to lie and say that

Zacarias Moussaoui Zacarias Moussaoui (Arabic: زكريا موسوي, '; born May 30, 1968) is a French member of al-Qaeda who pleaded guilty in U.S. federal court to conspiring to kill citizens of the United States as part of the September 11 attacks. He is serv ...

, whom he had seen at mosque, had confessed to being part of the

9/11 The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial ...

plot to him. When he refused, he says they charged him with supporting

terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

himself. The FBI originally claimed that he had lied to them, and charged him with providing false information, although he was later listed as having been fully honest with law enforcement from the beginning of his questioning.

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the M ...

Man linked to al Qaeda indicted
January 22, 2004 His lawyers contend that the nearly six-year wait for his trial is the longest any person has been held without trial in American history. CBC
Ottawa not saying if Canadian linked to al-Qaeda can return
June 15, 2009 On May 20, 2009, federal prosecutors announced that Warsame pleaded guilty to one count of "conspiring to support al-Qaida", with the remaining charges dismissed.

Associated Press The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...

Suspect pleads guilty to supporting al-Qaeda
May 20, 2009 In May 2009 Warsame pleaded guilty in a plea bargain. Four of the five charges against him were dropped. He pleaded guilty to "conspiring to provide material support and resources to Al-Qaida". According to Warsame's lawyers, he acknowledged attending a training camp, in 2000, but he had not done so out of a desire to engage in Jihad. Rather, he had initially traveled to Afghanistan under the impression it was a kind of Muslim utopia. He found it wasn't, and wanted to return to his life in North America, but he had run out of funds. He attended the camp because he would be fed there. According to his lawyers he did send funds to someone he had met at the camp. But it wasn't a donation. That individual had loaned him enough money to fly back to Canada. And the funds he sent back were a repayment of that loan.

Namesakes

According to the ''

Minneapolis Star Tribune The ''Star Tribune'' is the largest newspaper in Minnesota. It originated as the ''Minneapolis Tribune'' in 1867 and the competing ''Minneapolis Daily Star'' in 1920. During the 1930s and 1940s, Minneapolis's competing newspapers were consolida ...

'' another Minneapolis man named "Mohammed Warsame"—Ahmed Mohammed Warsame—had his application for US citizenship delayed for over two years due to sharing a name with Mohammed Warsame. Ahmed Warsame is also born in Somalia. He emigrated to the US at 17 years old in 1995, and completed his high school education in Minneapolis, where he had lived ever since. Marilu Cabrera, an immigration official, blamed a two-year delay in the FBI's responses to requests for fingerprint checks for the delay in processing Warsame's application. She said that 30,000 requests for fingerprint checks submitted in May 2006 had not been processed until 2008.

References

External links

Terror suspect freed upon arrival in Canada: lawyer
October 11, 2010 {{DEFAULTSORT:Warsame, Mohammed 1973 births Living people Canadian extrajudicial prisoners of the United States