18-year-old charged in ‘Jihad Jane’ terror case

An 18-year-old Pakistani linked to the Philadelphia-area woman known as Jihad Jane on Thursday became the youngest person in the United States ever indicted on charges of conspiracy to support terrorists.

A federal grand jury in Philadelphia charged Mohammad Hassan Khalid as an adult over alleged crimes committed while he was 15 and 16. Khalid turned 18 in late September.

The FBI took Khalid into custody in July. That arrest was sealed but reported by The Inquirer in August. It was made public Thursday.

Khalid is accused of recruiting jihadists and raising money for terrorists overseas, working online from the tiny Ellicott City, Md., apartment he shared with his parents and three siblings.

The introverted and thin teenager had lived legally in Maryland for four years and had just been accepted to Johns Hopkins University on a scholarship for this fall.

"We're saddened by today's indictment," said Khalid's lawyer, Jeffrey Lindy of Philadelphia. "The events involved occurred when he was younger, and the government has a misimpression of how the Internet was used in this case, and we intend to vigorously defend this at trial."

The Philadelphia-based grand jury on Thursday also indicted Ali Charaf Damache, 46, an Algerian being held by Irish authorities. Damache allegedly used the e-mail moniker "theblackflag" with other jihadists, and the indictment portrays him as a leader of the group.

Khalid and Damache are charged with providing material support to Colleen R. LaRose, known as Jihad Jane. She pleaded guilty in February to conspiracy to kill a Swedish cartoonist alleged to have blasphemed the prophet Mohammed.

Also charged is a Leadville, Colo., woman, Jamie Paulin Ramirez, who is said to have traveled to Ireland in 2009 and married Damache, whom she did not know, as part of the conspiracy. The government also alleges that her elementary-school-age son was trained "in the ways of violent jihad."

Ramirez's lawyer, Jeremy Ibrahim, said allegations about the child were not admitted in her plea, adding, "Whatever is said elsewhere, whether in a new indictment, a newspaper story or a tabloid, is of little concern or worry to us."

According to the government, the plotters believed that Ramirez's and LaRose's white skin and blond hair would draw less scrutiny from authorities.

To emphasize the apparent significance of the case, the Justice Department announced the indictment from Washington, not Philadelphia. Lisa Monaco, the assistant attorney general for national security, said the case "underscores the evolving nature of violent extremism."

All the participants named in the Pennsylvania indictment - LaRose in Pennsburg, Montgomery County; Ramirez in Colorado; Damache in Ireland; and Khalid in Maryland - allegedly met online.

LaRose traveled to Ireland in September 2009 to meet Damache and their coconspirators. She offered to use her U.S. identity and her boyfriend's passport, and to marry another, unnamed jihadist to help with the terror plot, officials said. The plot fizzled for reasons that have not been made public.

Khalid is accused of soliciting money and recruits for a jihad and of hiding a U.S. passport that LaRose stole from her Pennsburg boyfriend.

Sources say the FBI has also found e-mail and chat-room dialogue that links Khalid to other domestic and international terrorism investigations. In one case in which he is not charged, Khalid spoke to a Pittsburgh-area friend of "doing martyrdom operations together" at his public high school. The school is 20 minutes from National Security Agency headquarters at Fort Meade, Md.

"The place where I live is a HOTBED of NSA and all the security agencies of Amrika [sic]," Khalid wrote, according to government records. "And the kids who study in my school proudly state that their parents work in NSA and FBI, and even carry key chains - piss me off."

"Like Columbine?" the friend asked.

"Na'am, lol," Khalid wrote, using the Arabic word for "yes" and Internet slang for "laughing out loud."

Khalid's family emigrated from Pakistan four years ago. Relatives have told The Inquirer that before he was arrested in July, Khalid was questioned by the FBI at least eight times without a lawyer or parent present.

Defense lawyer Lindy, as well as prosecutor Jennifer A. Williams and Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd, declined to comment on the circumstances of the transfer of the case from juvenile to adult court.

Khalid is scheduled to make his first public appearance in federal court in Philadelphia on Monday. His lawyer said he would not contest the government's demand that Khalid remain jailed pending trial.

Prosecutors will seek to extradite Damache to Philadelphia for trial from Ireland, where he is being held on immigration charges. According to U.S. court documents, Damache is also under investigation by Algerian authorities.

Khalid was the first juvenile arrested on terrorism charges in the United States, officials said. The U.S. military has detained at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, at least 12 juveniles who were picked up as enemy combatants overseas.