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Mother of accused Jersey jihadist: My son is stupid, but he’s no terrorist

Jun 12, 2010 2:37 pm By Marisol Seibold

Now there’s a twist on the “Decent Fellows” canard. One might call it a variation on the oft-used “insanity” defense. Of course, it stands to reason she’ll make any excuse to believe, or at least to make others believe, that this has nothing to do with Islam.

And few will consider the chance that he’s actually quite crafty, or perhaps, that he’s both a jihadist and dumber than a bag of hammers as well. The important thing is, he’s a jihadist. “Mom of terror suspect: Son ‘stupid kid,’ not a terrorist,” by Kiran Khalid for CNN, June 12:

New York (CNN) — The mother of one of the two New Jersey men arrested last week at a New York airport allegedly on their way to fight with an al Qaeda affiliated group in Somalia says the two men are guilty of stupidity — but not of the sinister plan described by authorities.

“Anything makes him angry. But he’s not a terrorist, he’s a stupid kid,” Nadia Alessa said of her U.S.-born son, Mahmood.

Mohamed Mahmood Alessa, 20, of North Bergen, New Jersey, and Carlos Eduardo Almonte, 24, of Elmwood Park, New Jersey, are charged with one count each of conspiracy to kill, maim and murder persons outside of the United States, which carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.

The men, who were taken into custody at John F. Kennedy International Airport on June 5, intended to take separate flights to Egypt on their way to Somalia “to join designated foreign terrorist organization Al-Shabaab and wage violent jihad,” according to federal prosecutors.

The criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Newark alleges that in 2007, Alessa and Almonte traveled together to Jordan, where they intended to enter Iraq in order to commit violence against U.S. troops there.

Nadia Alessa told CNN that her son went to 16 or 17 psychiatrists for what she called “anger management issues” that surfaced when he was a little boy. He lived at his parents well-kept home where his angry outbursts were common.

Also of interest:

The Alessa family invited CNN on Saturday to also talk to a woman who says she was set to marry Mahmood Alessa upon his arrival in Egypt. Nadia Alessa said she met her son’s girlfriend the night before.

The 19-year-old woman, who said her name is Siham, sat at the family’s home, cloaked in a niqab, a veil that covers the entire body and face with only a sheer cloth revealing the eyes. She said she met Mahmood Alessa in an online chatroom.

Siham showed CNN her passport stamped June 9, 2010 indicating her arrival at JFK airport from Paris, France. She also produced her airline itinerary, which shows that her trip started in Cairo — where, she says, she was waiting was waiting for Mahmood Alessa.

“We were supposed to get married and study a while in Egypt. That was the plan,” Siham told CNN.

She said she moved from Sweden, where she was born to Egyptian parents, to Cairo at Alessa’s behest a few months ago.

When he didn’t arrive in Cairo on June 6, she was shocked to learn from a friend in New York that her soon-to-be fiance had been arrested.

“She told me that Mohamed got arrested for terrorism and that they were saying he was going to Somalia,” Siham said in disbelief. “So I didn’t know what to do, words can’t explain what I felt. I was in shock and I couldn’t stop crying.”

She said she boarded a flight and arrived in New York City just one day before Alessa’s arraignment Thursday. It was then that she him for the first tim [sic], through a veil in a federal courtroom.

“I didn’t have any ticket booked or anything. I just went to the airport and I booked a ticket from there and I left,” Siham said.

CNN recently learned that Alessa and Almonte were followers of an extreme Islamist group based in New York. CNN obtained an image of the two suspects attending a protest in New York organized by the Islamic Thinkers Society on June 1 of this year. They appear to have been taking part in a demonstration against Israel.

One is holding a banner; the other an Islamic Thinkers Society poster that includes the slogan, “Exterminate the Zionist Roaches.” The Society’s video of the event, posted on its YouTube channel, has since been removed….

No mention of the “Death to all Juice” sign, but you can read more on that here.

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