Pakistani-American who admitted to trying to join JeM sentenced to 20-year ‘supervised release’

New York, Aug 16 (IANS) A Pakistani-American, who travelled to Pakistan to join Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) to fight in Kashmir or Afghanistan, has been released after a federal judge sentenced him to 20 years of “supervised release”, sparing him further prison time.

Federal Judge Leonie Brinkema issued the judgement on Wednesday in the trial of Umar Farooq Chaudhury, 39, one of five men from the Washington area, who went to Pakistan in 2009 hoping to join the “Jihad”.

US Federal Bureau of Investigation Counterterrorism Special Agent Bruce Schwindt said in a court filing that according to Chaudhry’s companion Waqar Hussein Khan their recruiter “was going to take the group to Kashmir or Afghanistan”.

Chaudhury has admitted in court to a charge of conspiring to help JeM, a foreign terrorist group, and to “fight and, if necessary, kill any US military forces” in Afghanistan.

After he arrived in Pakistan, he was arrested on charges of conspiring to attack a Pakistani nuclear power plant and air force bases, according to court documents.

After being found guilty by a Pakistani court of conspiring to attack military facilities, he was imprisoned in the Faisalabad Central Jail and transferred to a high-security prison for terrorists in Sahiwal where he spent more than four years in solitary confinement, according to Chaudhry’s lawyer Geremy Kamens.

He said in a court filing that “Umar’s horrific experiences during the decade that he spent in prison in Pakistan are undoubtedly a principal reason” that prosecutors agreed to recommend sentencing him to time served.

While making a case for leniency, Kamens made a convoluted argument that Chaudhry had been arrested in Pakistan as a reaction to Washington’s criticism of Islamabad for supporting anti-India terrorists.

The lawyer wrote that “anti-Indian terrorist groups like Jaish-e-Mohammed furthered Pakistan’s interest in destabilising the US-backed Afghan government and supporting the Taliban, to avoid the establishment of a pro-Indian government on Pakistan’s western border”.

But “faced with escalating criticism from the US regarding its support of anti-Indian terrorist groups like Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba, the ISI (Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence) recognised that the arrest of Umar and his friends in Pakistan could be used as propaganda to demonstrate that US citizens had travelled to Pakistan to attack Pakistani military targets,” he wrote.

And this was behind the terrorism charges Pakistan had made against Chaudhry, the lawyer wrote.

FBI Special Agent Shwindt wrote that the recruiter, who was not identified, had made contact with them through Ahmed Ameer Minni, identified by one of the five as the group’s leader.

The recruiter communicated through YouTube and email, giving them instructions on how to get to Pakistan, according to him.

Chaudhry and his four companions went on their own to a mosque in Sindh province’s Hyderabad that they believed was associated with JeM, where the “Emir” directed them to a mujahideen camp in Lahore, Schwindt wrote.

The camp was thought to be associated with Jamaat-ud-Dawa, there they were told to get references before they could be admitted, he wrote.

They were arrested by Pakistani officials in Sardogha, according to Schwindt.

He wrote that Chaudhry said in an interview with the FBI, “We came (to Pakistan) for the sake of Islam to work with the Muslims.”

(Arul Louis can be contacted at arul.l@ians.in and followed at @arulouis)

–IANS

arul/khz