Five suspected terrorists have finally been indicted, months after being discovered in a crude compound in the desert in New Mexico. Jany Leveille, 36, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, 40, Hurjah Wahhaj, 38, Subhanah Wahhaj, 36, and 41-year-old Lucas Morton all face charges involving terrorism, kidnapping, and firearms violations, according to a press release by the Department of Justice.
The compound – an alleged training ground for child terrorists – was initially raided after a months-long search for a missing boy led authorities to the child’s father, Siraj Wahhaj. Rather than finding the missing child, they discovered Wahhaj leading four other adults – one of whom was an illegal alien from Haiti – as they allegedly trained 11 other children to become school shooters. From the search for a missing boy to the unexpected discovery of a terrorist training camp to the charges brought against these five, it has been a long and convoluted tale.
The Search
The search began when Hakima Ramzi told Georgia authorities in December 2017 that her son was missing, and that she suspected the boy’s father – her soon-to-be ex-husband – of taking him. Abdul-Ghani was born with a condition called hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, which can cause cerebral palsy, epilepsy, or other developmental delays and cognitive impairments. Ramzi believed that the father, Siraj Wahhaj, intended to perform ruqya – an Islamic form of exorcism – to expel the evil jinn he believed was the cause of his son’s ailment. It was the attempt to track down the missing boy’s father that led authorities to the compound in New Mexico in August of 2018.
The Discovery
When the police raided the property August 3, they found Siraj Wahhaj and Lucas Morton, as well as 11 other children and their mothers, Jany Leveille, Hujrah Wahhaj, and Subhannah Wahhaj. The children were malnourished, and were given water and snacks by the authorities.
The five adults were all charged with neglect, abuse, and kidnapping charges. A young child’s body was also discovered during another search of the facility on August 6 – and later identified as Siraj’s son, Abdul-Ghani.
The Mission
The children were, authorities claimed, being trained to commit acts of terrorism against Americans. A foster parent of one of the kids taken from the compound later told prosecutors that the child admitted to being taught to use an AR-15 and undergoing training to become a school shooter.
Other kids later testified that they were being trained as martyrs to commit suicide attacks. Amongst the evidence presented against the adults was a ten-page handwritten document titled “Phases of a Terrorist Attack,” which was allegedly an instruction manual for the young students. It is reported that the kids “had been instructed to shoot law enforcement personnel when the time came and that they would be instructed in the future to attack specific targets such as teachers, schools, banks and other ‘corrupt institutions.’”
The Wahhaj’s are the children of the elder Siraj Wahhaj, a controversial imam in Brooklyn and an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, according to prosecutors at the time. These children they were supposedly raising to be suicide terrorists were their own, so it should have come as no surprise that Siraj didn’t seem too terribly broken up over the fact that his attempted exorcism is likely what killed his son. Indeed – as punishment for any failures – the other kids were deprived of food and water and forced to wash the dead boy’s corpse.
The Release
While Siraj Wahhaj and Jany Leveille – an illegal immigrant from Haiti who overstayed a temporary visa – remained in custody, the other three were released. The initial judge, Sarah Backus, allowed all five adults a $20,000 bail – meaning that all any of them needed to walk was a bail bondsman and $2,000.
She justified her ruling by claiming the request to keep them detained was because they were black and Muslim rather than white and Christian. New Mexicans were understandably outraged that these three suspected terrorists had been turned loose to roam the streets freely, but they were powerless in the fact of judicial action.
The Twist
By the end of August 2018, just when it seemed that the liberal judges of New Mexico would absolve these terrible teachers of all responsibility for their actions, the FBI stepped in and arrested them. Though they weren’t out long, as Jeff Charles pointed out, their release could still have cost lives: “What if these individuals had decided to carry out an attack after being released? It is likely that they knew they would be arrested again – perhaps desperation could have driven them to kill as many Americans as possible.”
Now that a grand jury has brought indictments against the five, the next chapter in this strange saga begins. With any luck, it will be the final chapter – for them, at least. Stay tuned to Liberty Nation as we continue to watch for new developments.
