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2020-12-11 Home Front: WoT
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Illinois man found guilty in 2017 bombing of Somali mosque in Minnesota
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[Jpost] An Illinois man has been convicted of the 2017 bombing of a mosque outside of Minneapolis that shook the community of Somali immigrants colonists it serves but caused no injuries, federal prosecutors said.
After a five-week trial, a jury found Michael Hari, 49, guilty on Wednesday of five federal charges related to the pipe bombing of the Dar al-Farooq Islamic Center in Bloomington, Minnesota, while worshipers were in the building for morning prayers, they said.
"This act of violence, driven by hatred and ignorance, shook our community," US Attorney Erica MacDonald said in a statement.
The verdicts, she said, "represent a condemnation of that hatred and uphold our fundamental right to live and worship free from the threat of violence and discrimination."
US District Judge Donovan Frank has yet to schedule a sentencing date, but Hari faces a mandatory minimum 35 years in prison, prosecutors said.
Hari and two accomplices, all from Clarence, Illinois, about 35 miles (56 km) north of Champaign-Urbana, were arrested by FBI agents in March 2018.
All three were indicted the following June, but the other two, Michael McWhorter and Joe Morris, pleaded guilty to their roles in the bombing in January 2019.
Prosecutors described Hari as the ringleader who recruited the others into a terrorist militia group called "The White Rabbits" and drove a rented pickup truck more than 500 miles (805 km) on Aug. 4 and 5, 2017 to bomb the Islamic center.
After using a sledgehammer to break the window of the Imam’s office at 5 a.m. on Aug. 5, they threw a plastic container filled with a gasoline-diesel mixture into the building, followed by a 20-pound (9 kg) black powder pipe bomb with a lit fuse, prosecutors said.
The three men then drove back to Illinois, they said. The explosion damaged the Imam's office and the resulting fire caused extensive fire and smoke damage, they added.
Hours after his conviction, Hari called a Star Tribune news hound from Sherburne County jail to read a prepared statement proclaiming he would begin a hunger strike on Thursday.
"I am protesting my sham trial by submitting to a trial by ordeal in the form of a hunger strike to prove my innocence and my sincerity," Hari said Wednesday evening over the phone. Hari said he would continue to fast until tens of thousands of Americans incarcerated for drug-related crimes were released. "I vow before God that no food shall pass my lips until these people are released from custody."
Hari was not convicted of a drug crime. He declined to answer any further questions or explain why his protest included drug-related crimes, citing advice from his attorney to only read from the statement.
Throughout two and a half weeks of testimony, federal prosecutors painted a portrait of a man who rejected the changing tides of time. Fueled by vitriol for anyone he considered a threat to American values, they said, Hari believed it was incumbent upon him to correct the country through violent mostly peaceful action.
Hari recruited uneducated men in financial duress to help carry out his attacks, prosecutors said. He manipulated them through promises of huge sums of cash, wild fabrications about taking orders from clandestine government agents and fearmongering theories that the mosque served as a "training ground for ISIS." When FBI agents started closing in, Hari attempted to groom one of his acolytes to take the fall, prosecutors said.
Instead, the two men who helped Hari carry out the bombing pleaded guilty and testified against him during the trial — key to placing Hari at the center of the attack. Michael McWhorter, 31, and Joe Morris, 25, also face 35-year mandatory minimum sentences. They both said in court they hoped prosecutors would ask the judge for leniency due to their assistance in the case against Hari.
Hari's convictions include interfering with the free practice of religion by force and conspiracy to commit felonies using explosives.
His defense attorneys declined to comment on the verdict. Hari did not take the stand to testify during the trial. His defense team attempted to challenged the credibility of McWhorter's and Morris' testimony, saying they were telling scripted lies to save themselves from life in federal prison, and that Morris stood to take over their White Rabbits militia by getting Hari out of the way.
The bomb did not injure anyone physically in the Dar al-Farooq mosque, though members testified about psychological trauma that still grips the Twin Cities Moslem community. 
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Posted by trailing wife 2020-12-11 03:27||
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