Jury considers fate of man who traveled to Islamic State

This undated file image posted on a militant website shows fighters roam the al-Qaida linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), now called the Islamic State group, marching in Raqqa, Syria. (Militant Website via AP, File)

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia—Yes, Mohamad Khweis left his home in Virginia and joined the Islamic State. He even got an official membership card.

But he says this does not make him a terrorist.

It is now up to a jury to decide Khweis’ fate after lawyers in US District Court in Alexandria made their closing arguments at his terrorism trial Wednesday.

Khweis took the unusual step of testifying on his own behalf at the trial, telling jurors he just wanted to “check things out” in the Islamic State, and then realized it was not for him.

“He wanted to find out how they could justify some of this stuff,” like suicide bombings, said defense attorney John Zwerling, who asserted that there’s no evidence his client ever expressed a desire to harm America. “It’s not a crime to explore, to try to see some of this information for yourself,” he said.

Prosecutors ridiculed the notion that Khweis had himself smuggled across the Syrian border on some sort of curiosity tour. They noted that Khweis expressed a willingness to be a suicide bomber on an official Islamic State intake form.

“Nobody joins a terrorist organization like ISIS, that is renowned for its terror and its … murderous agenda, just to check things out,” prosecutor Raj Parekh said.

Khweis, 27, is one of more than 100 people charged in the US in recent years with helping or trying to help the Islamic State. But most cases involve sting operations—his is among a small handful that involve individuals who actually evaded the US intelligence apparatus and reached Islamic State territory.

Khweis lived in the Islamic State from December 2015 through March 2016. According to trial testimony, he became intrigued with the Islamic State in 2015. He told FBI agents who questioned after his arrest he was intrigued about the establishment of a caliphate and wanted to tell his grandchildren he had been a part of it.

He quit his job as a bus driver in the D.C. region, and booked a one-way flight to Istanbul, via London and Amsterdam. Once in Turkey, he established social media accounts using the moniker GreenBird, which is associated with martyrdom by the Islamic State.

Khweis used his social media accounts to reach out to people he thought could help smuggle him across the border to Syria, including one person known as the “Mad Mullah.”

Finally, in late December, he got the call: He should leave his hotel room and enter a waiting taxi if he wanted to join. He did, and was smuggled across the border along with several Frenchmen. At one point, he received text orders to get out of the car and alternately walk and run across the border territory, taking care to avoid land mines.

He was processed by the Islamic State during a short stay in the Syrian city of Raqqa. The processing was formal, with blood tests, intake forms, and issuance of an ID card. It was on these intake forms that he expressed his willingness to serve as a suicide bomber.

During the next three months, he bounced among several safehouses in Syria and Iraq. He received religious training, and he met an American with a unit called Jaysh Khalifa, which trains people to go back to their home countries and conduct attacks.

Prosecutors pointed out that Khweis was interrogated multiple times before mentioning the American, which they said was shameful, given the risks to the US.

Khweis testified that he came to believe he was destined for military service, but he never seemed to gain the trust of Islamic State officials, who suspected he was a spy.

Khweis said he only expressed a willingness to serve as a suicide bomber because he would otherwise be labeled a spy.

Under the law, Khweis cannot be convicted of providing support to terrorists if he was being coerced or acting under duress, a fact defense lawyers emphasized to the jury.

His freedom ended once he entered that taxi outside his Turkish hotel room, they said.

“From that point forward, ISIS took control of his life,” defense attorney Jessica Carmichael said. “Whatever expectation he had about being able to walk the streets of Raqqa and see what life was like, that wasn’t going to happen.”

Prosecutors countered that Khweis knew exactly what he was getting himself into.

“It takes a highly dedicated and highly motivated individual to get to the Islamic State,” prosecutor Dennis Fitzpatrick said. JPV