Bangladeshi-American convicted on charges of trying to aid Taliban

A Bangladesh-born American, who was stopped by US law enforcement as he was about to fly out to join the Taliban, has been convicted on charges of trying to help the terrorist organisation that now controls Afghanistan.

A jury in the New York federal court found Delowar Mohammed Hossain, 36, guilty on Friday of trying to contribute funds, goods and services to the Taliban as well as attempting to provide support for terrorism, reports wionews.com.

He was arrested in 2019 as he was about to board a plane in New York bound for Thailand en route to Pakistan.

The complaint filed by officials said that Hossain had planned to fly first to Thailand rather than directly to Pakistan in order to throw off suspicions about where he was headed.

A court allowed him last year to be detained at home as the Covid-19 pandemic swept the country.

The trial lasted about a week and the jury, a panel made up of ordinary citizens that render verdicts in the US, reached convicted him after deliberating for two days after the close of testimony and arguments.

At the time of his arrest, the Assistant Director-in-Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) New York office, William Sweeney, said: "The lure of radical ideologies comes from many sources, and just because the Taliban may seem like an old and out of vogue extremist group, it shouldn't be underestimated."

It has since become powerful enough to take over Afghanistan as the US withdrew its troops from there.
According to the complaint filed in a federal court, Hossain tried to recruit an FBI "confidential source" to travel with him to Pakistan and cross into Afghanistan to join the Taliban.

The complaint said that Hossain told the source he wanted to "fight the American government, and kill some kufars (non-believers) before I die".

He bought communication equipment and trekking gear for his mission and asked the source to save money to buy arms.

Hossain, an Uber driver, faces combined up to 35 years in prison when he’s sentenced while a sentencing date was scheduled for early next year, reports The Washington Post.

“We are disappointed by the verdict. We maintain that Delowar never had the intent to join the Taliban and that the evidence did not demonstrate he would have ever traveled to Afghanistan,” Hossain’s attorneys Andrew Dalack and Amy Gallicchio said in a statement Friday evening.

Prosecutors said Hossain took pains to not appear to be a religious extremist to authorities.

He trimmed his beard and hair, switching from traditional garb to American clothing. His goal was to make it to Pakistan, where he believed he could cross the border into Afghanistan, according to evidence presented at his two-week trial.

“[Hossain] wanted to be a terrorist, and he did everything, everything in his power, to make that happen,” Assistant US Attorney Jessica Fender argued in summations Thursday.

In the time before his travel date, Hossain made credit card charges that he believed would help conceal his purpose for going overseas, processing transactions at bars and strip clubs in an effort to make him appear to be “a bad Muslim,” according to the US attorney in Manhattan.

Lawyers for Hossain argued that he was set up by the informants and that his bluster about wanting to commit murder and join the Taliban was just talk. The evidence, they argued, will not show he was going to take actual steps to get there.

“Thinking about committing a crime isn’t a crime,” Gallicchio argued in her closing argument.

“And the government cannot police your thoughts or even your misguided admiration of the Taliban.”