New York, June 08: The two American suspects in US’ latest terror plot were ordered to be held without bail as they appeared in a court for the first time since their arrest.
The two young men, who planned to travel to Somalia to join an al Qaeda-linked group and attack American troops, have been charged with conspiring to kill, kidnap or maim citizens outside the United States. If convicted, they could land in prison for life.
Mohamed Mahmood Alessa, 20, of North Bergen and Carlos Eduardo Almonte, 24, were arrested yesterday before they could board two separate flights to Egypt with Somalia as their ultimate destination.
US magistrate judge Madeline Cox Arleo at the Newark District Court in New Jersey noted that the defendants were at flight risk and needed to be detained until the next hearing on Thursday. She also appointed two separate lawyers for them.
Assistant US attorney L Judson Welle said that the two American citizens were a danger to the community.
Alessa and Almonte were arrested at the John F Kennedy airport in New York before they took flights to Egypt from where they were heading to Somalia to join al Shabaab, the Islamist group which controls large parts of the country and is fighting against the Western-backed Transitional Federal
Government.
Meanwhile, Almonte’s father said he will not be supporting his son and the Dominican immigrant did not attend his son’s first court appearance.
“I’m not supporting anybody that does something wrong,” Pedro Amonte said of his 24-year-old son, Carlos, the NY Daily News reported.
Carlos reportedly converted to radical Islam and changed his name to Omar after high school when he stared hanging out with Alessa.
“I don’t want to talk to anybody – even him… Like everybody else we were not expecting this. That’s all I can say,” Pedro said.
The criminal complaint states that the two American citizens prepared for their mission by working out in the gym, doing test runs at paintball fields, saving thousands of dollars, buying cargo pants, listening to videos by radical American-Yemeni cleric Anwar Al Awalaki, and reading documents authored by Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri.
“A lot of people need to get killed bro, swear to God…I have to… just kill anyone that even looks at me the wrong way bro,” Almonte reportedly said to Alessa and a New York City undercover cop who recorded the conversation in November 2009.
–PTI–