Was a West Philly teen trying to build bombs for Syrian terror groups? Or was he a misguided kid with no criminal intent?

To hear Philadelphia prosecutors tell it, Muhyyee-Ud-din Abdul-Rahman was in the midst of becoming a homegrown terrorist.

In 2023, the FBI discovered that Abdul-Rahman, then 17, had been exchanging messages with Syrian extremists on Instagram — the only person in the United States to be drawn into an online conversation with key members of Katibat al Tawhid wal Jihad, or KTJ, a federal agent testified this week.

When investigators searched the trash cans outside Abdul-Rahman’s family home in Wynnefield, authorities said, they found wires typically used in the construction of homemade bombs.

And when agents decided to secretly conduct 24-hour surveillance of Abdul-Rahman, they watched as he took a trip to Lowe’s with his mother, then bought a gallon of muriatic acid — a key ingredient in a powerful explosive called TATP, also known as “the mother of Satan.”

“He had decided he wanted to become a bomb maker, and he was experimenting,” Assistant District Attorney Robert Listenbee told jurors Tuesday during closing arguments at Abdul-Rahman’s trial on charges including possessing weapons of mass destruction.

But Abdul-Rahman’s attorneys say he was simply an immature teen. Even though he was a rising high school senior with a guaranteed college wrestling scholarship and a father who was well-known in the legal community — Qawi Abdul-Rahman, a criminal defense attorney and former judicial candidate — the younger Abdul-Rahman had become unduly influenced by internet propaganda, his lawyers said, and never really had the capacity or expertise to build a real explosive device.

“They want to make him out to be this genius,” one of his lawyers, Donald Chisholm, said Tuesday. “We don’t know if he was really ever successful.”

Jurors have now been asked to decide which version of events to believe.

The panel began deliberations Tuesday afternoon to determine if Abdul-Rahman should be convicted of charges that also include risking a catastrophe and possessing an instrument of crime. Common Pleas Court Judge Michele Hangley dismissed a count of conspiracy during trial after ruling that prosecutors hadn’t presented enough evidence to prove Abdul-Rahman had acted with anyone else.

Jurors were sent home after about two hours of deliberations Tuesday and asked to return Wednesday morning.

The case is a rare example of a plot with international intrigue being weighed in Philadelphia’s criminal courthouse. Federal authorities were heavily involved in the investigation, but juveniles are rarely charged in federal courts, which do not have a dedicated system for handling cases involving young people.

Abdul-Rahman, now 19, was initially charged in Philadelphia’s juvenile system, but the District Attorney’s Office last year persuaded a judge to transfer the case to adult court, which they said was a more appropriate venue due to the gravity of the allegations and the need for consequences.

Much of the evidence during trial over the past week centered on internet activity that federal authorities linked to Abdul-Rahman through his phone. Still, Listenbee told jurors that the most critical part of the case was Abdul-Rahman’s decision to begin stockpiling explosive materials, including various chemicals and devices that can initiate detonations.

“He was trying to create the bomb,” Listenbee said. “There’s no question about that.”

The investigation began in 2023, FBI Special Agent David Cunningham told jurors this week, when he was investigating certain Instagram accounts linked to key propagandists from KTJ. Abdul-Rahman, he said, was the only American exchanging messages with those accounts, and when authorities sought to learn more about who Abdul-Rahman was, they noticed he used an ISIS flag as his profile picture on various social media sites.

Cunningham later discovered other signs he considered troubling, including Abdul-Rahman applying for his first passport in 2023, attempting to reach out to a Syrian border crossing office, and having Instagram messages that included photos of bombs or videos espousing martyrdom.

In August 2023, Cunningham said, agents searched his family’s trash cans and discovered the used wiring. Then, after increasing surveillance of Abdul-Rahman’s house, they saw him make the trip to Lowe’s where he bought the acid that is needed to construct TATP.

Another FBI intelligence analyst, Janel Gale, testified that Abdul-Rahman’s internet search history from the time also showed he’d been looking up Philadelphia parade routes, trash can bombs, and nuclear power plants.

By mid-August, Cunningham testified, agents served a search warrant on the house where Abdul-Rahman lived with his family and found additional chemicals and devices that could be used for remote ignition.

Federal agents questioned Abdul-Rahman inside a police station, Cunningham said, and Abdul-Rahman admitted he wanted to become a “bomb guy” for KTJ in Syria, that he’d conducted some bomb tests near his house, and that he’d unsuccessfully sought to recruit other high school classmates to join him.

On Aug. 14, 2023, authorities announced Abdul-Rahman’s arrest. District Attorney Larry Krasner said at the time that the teen “presented a grave danger to everyone — himself, his family, the block where he lives, and frankly, people everywhere in Philadelphia and potentially people around the country or even overseas.”

At trial, however, his attorneys said there was no evidence that Abdul-Rahman had ever successfully built an explosive device — or that he’d ever seriously considered taking action to advance the views he was expressing online.

“Do not convict a 17-year-old for his immature thoughts on society,” Chisholm said.

Jurors are now set to determine his fate.