The terror case against an area man accused of facilitating another’s attempt at joining the Islamic State group was fabricated by the FBI, his attorney told reporters outside a federal court house in Alexandria on Tuesday.
After a hearing for 25-year-old Mahmoud Amin Mohamed Elhassan of Woodbridge, his attorney, Ashraf Nubani, all but alleged his client was entrapped by government investigators.
Mr. Elhassan was arrested four days earlier and accused of driving a friend to a Richmond airport so he could travel overseas and join the Islamic State.
“The issue is the way the government goes about these cases,” Mr. Nubani told reporters after his client’s initial hearing. “They had three informants in this case who were looking for people that they can get in trouble. They thought that they found someone, and my client is only charged with aiding and abetting that someone.”
Authorities arrested the friend, 28-year-old Joseph Hassan Farrokh, also of Woodbridge, at the Richmond airport on Friday, and apprehended Mr. Elhassan shortly after. In official documents, they said Mr. Elhassan knew that his friend intended on joining the Islamic State and had agreed to help him start his trek.
Mr. Elhassan has been charged with aiding and abetting Mr. Farrokh’s attempt to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, and each faces a maximum of 20 years in prison if convicted. Since the rise of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, the Justice Department has brought charges against more than 70 individuals accused of aiding the group.
In the wake of similar incidents in which Muslims were charged with terror-related crimes following investigations that relied on government informants, Mr. Nubani, who is only representing Mr. Elhassan, accused the Justice Department of taking advantage of the current wave of anti-Islamic sentiment.
Mr. Elhassan came from a “regular family,” the attorney said, and that “some people are Islamophobic, and they’re whipping up fear against Muslims.”
“They create cases, and then they prevent them from happening,” he said. “I think it’s unfortunate that in the media and public discourse we allow these cases to be dictated by the position of the government,” WTVR News quoted him as saying.
A federal judge has ordered both men to be held until at least their next court appearances, scheduled for next week, The Washington Post reported.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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