New Mexico / Siraj Wahhaj

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New Mexico / Siraj Wahhaj

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Mon Aug 06, 2018 6:06 pm

Via: https://www.npr.org/2018/08/06/63591976 ... -in-squalo

Police in rural New Mexico have rescued 11 children living in what authorities have described as a squalid compound after receiving a tip that they were "starving."

The children, ranging in age from 1 to 15, were removed from the compound in the small community of Amalia, near the New Mexico-Colorado border, about 145 miles northeast of Albuquerque.

"They were skinny, their ribs showed, they were in very poor hygiene and very scared," Taos County Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe told ABC News Radio.

"I've been a cop for 30 years. I've never seen anything like this. Unbelievable," Hogrefe said. "These children were hungry, they were thirsty, they were filthy."

Two armed men, identified as Siraj Wahhaj, 39, and Lucas Morten, 40, were arrested. Three women, believed to be mothers of the children, were also briefly detained, Hogrefe said.

...

The Taos News reports that a toddler who shares the same surname as Wahhaj, and whom authorities had been searching for, was not among those rescued in the raid. The 3-year-old had been reported missing from his mother's Georgia home in December.

The newspaper adds, "According to Clayton County police, the toddler and his father had last been seen Dec. 13 traveling with two adults and five children in Alabama when they were involved in a single-vehicle accident on Interstate 65. The Alabama officer who talked to the group after the accident said they 'indicated that they were traveling to New Mexico for a camping trip.'"


Via: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/08/06/mo ... ested.html

The boy's father was among five people arrested after the raid near the border with Colorado, and documents made public in a court filing Monday said the father told the boy's mother before fleeing Georgia that he wanted to perform an exorcism on the child because he believed he was possessed by the devil.

...

Wahhaj's son, Abdul-ghani, who was 3 when he disappeared last December, was not among the children found, but Hogrefe said authorities have reason to believe the boy was at the compound several weeks ago.

Hogrefe's deputies are searching for the child, along with the FBI and Georgia authorities in Clayton County, where officials say the boy was living before his father took him around Dec. 1, 2017.

...

The grandfather of the missing boy, Imam Siraj Wahhaj of Brooklyn, New York, issued a plea on Facebook for helping finding his grandson.

In a federal court filing in 2006, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj claimed he was harassed on his way to and from Morocco by customs agents at JFK Airport in New York because he is "the son of the famous Muslim Imam Siraj Wahhaj."
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Re: New Mexico / Siraj Wahhaj

Postby seemslikeadream » Mon Aug 06, 2018 7:06 pm

This is squaller

Image

Image

Image

this is the missing baby
Image
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: New Mexico / Siraj Wahhaj

Postby Cordelia » Tue Aug 07, 2018 2:18 pm

From OP:

The grandfather of the missing boy, Imam Siraj Wahhaj of Brooklyn, New York, issued a plea on Facebook for helping finding his grandson.

In a federal court filing in 2006, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj claimed he was harassed on his way to and from Morocco by customs agents at JFK Airport in New York because he is "the son of the famous Muslim Imam Siraj Wahhaj."


When I read the first horrific reports on this story (w/many red flags), I thought of 'The Finders' from 30 years ago, but this is getting fishier and fishier, inc brief Washington Post ref. from AP to grandfather....

The Latest: Grandfather issues plea to find missing boy

by Associated Press August 6 at 4:50 PM

TAOS, N.M. — The Latest on 11 children found living in a filthy makeshift compound in New Mexico (all times local):

2:45 p.m.

The grandfather of a missing Georgia boy has issued a plea for help.

Imam Siraj Wahhaj
of Brooklyn, New York, posted a message on Facebook asking for help in finding his grandson, Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj.

Authorities in New Mexico arrested the boy’s father, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, on Friday.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national ... ee9ad8b61a


Not mentioned in that WaPo article:

The Imam of At-Taqwa is Siraj Wahhaj, who appeared on a list of unindicted coconspirators in the trial of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.[1] Wahhaj provided testimony during the trial to defend the Blind Sheikh, Omar Abdel-Rahman, the former leader of the Egyptian terrorist organization, Gama'a al-Islamiyya. Rahman was found guilty of "conspiracy to murder President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt," "solicitation to attack a military installation," and of bombing conspiracy related to a plot to bomb the New York FBI headquarters along with tunnels and other landmarks.[2] During Wahhaj's testimony, he called the Sheik a "respected scholar," also calling him "bold, as a strong preacher of Islam."[3]

In addition to these ties, Wahhaj has made extremist statements while lecturing at the Islamic Association of Northern Texas. In November of 1991, Wahhaj advocated the establishment of an Islamic State in the U.S.:

"Where ever you came from, you came to America. And you came for one reason- for one reason only – to establish Allah's deen."
[4][emphasis added]

During the same lecture Wahhaj predicted the demise of America unless it accepted "the Islamic agenda," citing the fall of the Soviet Union as a warning sign.[5] [emphasis added] He added that "there will never be an Islamic State, never, until there's first an Islamic state of mind," and that Muslim should be involved in politics not because, "it's the American thing to do. You get involved in politics because politics are a weapon to use in the cause of Islam." [6] [emphasis added

https://www.investigativeproject.org/mo ... d-at-taqwa


If the same person, wouldn't there be/have been very heavy surveillance on his whole family, including his son?
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Re: New Mexico / Siraj Wahhaj

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Tue Aug 07, 2018 2:50 pm

Cordelia » Tue Aug 07, 2018 1:18 pm wrote:
If the same person, wouldn't there be/have been very heavy surveillance on his whole family, including his son?


Yes, absolutely -- unless he was the halal equivalent of Hal Turner, which is my read on the situation so far. When people are openly saying things that would get normal Americans visited by the Secret Service, if not locked up outright, the patterns of force get pretty visible.

Consider this curious passage from the initial NPR coverage -- bear in mind Hogrefe is the County Sheriff, not an FBI agent giving a briefing:

Hogrefe said that FBI agents had surveilled the compound a few weeks previous but did not at the time find probable cause to conduct a search.

Then Hogrefe's office received a message — thought to have come from someone inside — from a third party, saying, "We are starving and need food and water."

"I absolutely knew that we couldn't wait on another agency to step up and we had to go check this out as soon as possible," Hogrefe said, according to The Associated Press.


Huh. Looks and quacks like a Confidential Human Source...
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Re: New Mexico / Siraj Wahhaj

Postby cptmarginal » Tue Aug 07, 2018 3:38 pm

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB106694267937278700

Friday October 24, 2003

In the burgeoning world of Islam in America, Imam Siraj Wahhaj is a star. In 1991, he was the first Muslim ever to lead a prayer before the start of a session of the House of Representatives. Four years ago, then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright hosted him and other Muslim notables at a State Department banquet of lamb, lentils and saffron rice to break the Ramadan fast. One of the country’s most popular Muslim preachers, he travels widely, extolling the Quran to large crowds at immigrant Islamic centers, conventions and universities.

But to his followers in Brooklyn’s inner-city Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood and elsewhere, the imam sometimes shows a different side. He has proclaimed that the “real terrorists” are the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency. In another of his sermons, widely available for purchase on audiotape, he says, “In time, this so-called democracy will crumble, and there will be nothing. And the only thing that will remain will be Islam.”

...

It was an article of faith among Elijah Muhammad’s followers that he would live for generations to come. When he died in 1975 at age 77, “his teachings began to unravel in my mind,” Imam Wahhaj says. He and thousands of other Nation of Islam members began to study the Quran. With the encouragement of Elijah Muhammad’s son W.D. Muhammad, they spent the late 1970s groping their way toward the kind of orthodox Sunni Islam followed by most of the rest of the Muslim world.

That coincided with the move by Saudi Arabia, home of Islam’s holiest sites, to step up its world-wide campaign to spread the harsh version of Sunni Islam favored by its rulers. Mounting oil profits in the 1970s fueled the expanded Saudi proselytizing, which escalated further in the 1980s in response to the perceived threat to Sunni domination from the Shiite Islamic revolution in Iran. Saudi-funded Islamic teachers began arriving in the U.S. just as black Muslims began exploring their faith.

Jeffrey 12X changed his name to Siraj Wahhaj, which means “bright light” in Arabic, and stopped painting portraits, in deference to the orthodox Muslim prohibition on depicting human images. In 1978, he traveled to Naperville, Ill., for religious training sponsored by the Saudis. His class of 50 African-American Muslims received 40 days of intense instruction on the Quran and the teachings of the original Prophet Muhammad.

Imam Wahhaj and four others from the program were chosen to travel to Mecca in Saudi Arabia for four months of advanced training in Islamic religion and law and Arabic. Awaking each morning before dawn, he walked to the mosque under a star-filled desert sky. He says he felt “absolute awe. … I was on a spiritual high for four months.” The first to arrive at class after prayers, he sat in the front row and taped every lecture.

He started his own mosque in 1981 in a friend’s Brooklyn apartment. They moved the furniture from the living room to the bedroom so that 25 people could pray toward Mecca. Soon afterward, the congregation, known as Masjid At-Taqwa, bought an abandoned clothing store at a city auction for $30,000 and converted it into a mosque. The congregants had to chase away the junkies who were using the property.

Fighting drugs became one of the missions of Taqwa, which means “God consciousness” in Arabic. In January 1987, the imam led a group of his followers to oust crack-cocaine dealers squatting in a nearby building. The Taqwa group banged on the door, and Imam Wahhaj says he announced, “It’s the Muslims. We’re here to recover the property.” Behind the door, he could hear someone say, “It’s the Muslims. Don’t do anything stupid.”

The dealers promised to vacate, and the Muslims retreated to a car parked outside to wait. But instead of leaving, the drug dealers called the police, according to the imam. He and four of his followers were arrested on weapons-possession charges. A state court later dismissed the sole misdemeanor count of illegal possession of a knife filed against the imam.

About a year later, he led a series of well-publicized antidrug patrols that helped police put a dent in the crack trade in Bedford-Stuyvesant. The imam also maintains close relations with non-Muslim groups that protest police brutality. “He’s very effective, particularly within the Muslim community and very respected in the community at large,” says one activist, the Rev. Herbert Daughtry, of Brooklyn’s Pentecostal House of the Lord Church.

Masjid At-Taqwa occupies a large corner storefront, divided into spacious, windowless rooms painted green and beige. At well-attended Friday afternoon prayers congregants wearing do-rag stocking caps and Sean John sweatshirts mingle with those who wear finely embroidered Muslim caps and flowing robes of crimson and gold. About half are African-Americans. The others are immigrants from the Middle East, South Asia and Africa. Worshipers range from poor Brooklynites to the occasional celebrity, such as boxer Mike Tyson.

Also attending, according to the imam, is the occasional U.S. government spy seeking incriminating evidence against him. In the mid-1980s, a man he believes was a government agent offered to help the mosque obtain hand grenades. The imam says he sent him away.

Since the mosque’s arrival 20 years ago, Islam has come to dominate the immediate neighborhood. Nearby are more than a dozen Muslim restaurants, food stores and bookshops, most run by immigrants. On the sidewalk, vendors sell body oils, incense and audiotapes of Imam Wahhaj’s sermons.

The mosque operates on an annual budget of about $200,000, the imam says, raised from weekly donations by individuals, rent from its six commercial properties and occasional checks from predominantly immigrant organizations.

His own $44,000 salary comes out of that budget and sometimes is supplemented by honoraria of $1,000 or $2,000 for giving speeches, he says. He lives with his wife, Wadiyah, a legal secretary, in part of a three-family house in East Flatbush, a mostly African-American neighborhood. His eight children, some from a previous marriage, range in age from 12 to 32, and all but two daughters are observant Muslims.

Within the confines of his mosque, the imam preaches Islam as a faith of personal responsibility but one that is sometimes at odds with mainstream life in the U.S. He glorifies hard work, even if it means sweeping the streets, and exhorts the stream of black men who adopt Islam while behind bars to avoid crime, liquor and drugs. But his preaching also suggests a yearning for the religion as it was practiced centuries ago.

He has said of thieves and adulterers: “If Allah says 100 strikes, 100 strikes it is. If Allah says cut off their hand, you cut off their hand. If Allah says stone them to death, through the Prophet Muhammad, then you stone them to death, because it’s the obedience of Allah and his messenger — nothing personal.”

And to an audience of 75 mostly black women wearing Muslim head coverings at an Islamic conference in Orlando, Fla., he lectured recently that Islam condones a man’s marrying up to four wives. He stressed that when this rule was introduced in the seventh century, it served as a restriction on arrangements involving even more wives per husband.

Mr. Wahhaj’s views are well known in the Muslim community because he has a busy speaking calendar, and tapes of his sermons are readily available in Muslim stores, at Islamic conferences and on the Internet. Many of his beliefs — such as his deep antipathy toward the U.S. authorities — are echoed by other black Muslim clerics. “We don’t trust the American government and the way that it does things and sets people up,” says Al-Hajj Talib ‘Abdur-Rashid, the imam of the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood, a large congregation in Harlem. Imam ‘Abdur-Rashid points to slavery, generations of segregation and government investigations of Dr. King and other black heroes as the cause of the widespread skepticism.

Stephen Schwartz, author of “The Two Faces of Islam,” a book published last year, blames Imam Wahhaj for spreading an extreme form of the religion known as Wahhabism. Embraced by the forebears of the current Saudi royal family, Wahhabism was named for Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, the leader of an 18th-century movement to re-create the religion of the 600s, as practiced by the Prophet Muhammad and his companions. Strict Wahhabis despise Western cultural and religious influences. Osama bin Laden and his followers adhere to a strain of this ideology.

“People like Wahhaj went from Nation of Islam to Saudi Wahhabism, and they preach those extreme views to their followers,” says Mr. Schwartz, who says he himself has embraced a moderate version of Islam. “Wahhabism is hostile to all ‘nonbelievers,’ to secular society, certainly to American society, and it can fit with black radical thought.”

In an interview in his tiny mosque office, Imam Wahhaj says that he isn’t a Wahhabi and that the Saudi-funded programs he attended years ago were “definitely not what you would call Wahhabism.” American Muslims, he says, “have never looked to Saudi Arabia for guidance, especially African-Americans.”

He says he regrets the tone of some of his harshest comments about democracy. His anticipation of its collapse, he says, “is similar to a Christian saying eventually God’s kingdom is going to come.” He notes that “obviously, in the American context, we can’t cut off the hands of thieves.” He says that he hopes Americans one day will be persuaded — not coerced — to embrace Islamic law.

Still, over the years, Imam Wahhaj has welcomed some significant players on the militant Muslim scene into his Brooklyn mosque. Clement Hampton-El, an African-American Muslim who in the 1980s fought with the Muslim resistance against the Russians in Afghanistan, regularly worshipped at At-Taqwa upon his return to the U.S. He was sought out by young and old for his advice as an “elder in the community,” says Imam Wahhaj.

The blind Sheik Abdel-Rahman, who became a celebrity in certain Islamic circles as he toured the U.S. in the early 1990s, gave a provocative lecture at the mosque. Standing before about 150 congregants, the sheik suggested that Muslims should rob banks to benefit Islam. Imam Wahhaj says he interrupted to point out that there were convicted felons in the audience, and the sheik, laughing, retracted the remark.

Imam Wahhaj’s worlds collided when the World Trade Center was bombed in 1993. The FBI investigation of the bombing led to charges not only against the bombers but also a network of anti-American Muslims who planned to destroy the United Nations’ headquarters, the George Washington Bridge, Lincoln Tunnel and other New York-area landmarks.

The FBI soon figured out that two members of that network had worshipped at Masjid At-Taqwa: Sheik Abdel-Rahman and Mr. Hampton-El. In a Feb. 2, 1995, letter to defense lawyers in the landmarks-bombing case, then-U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White named about 170 people as “unindicted persons who may be alleged as co-conspirators.” Imam Wahhaj was on the list, but was never charged. Ms. White declined to comment.

Five months later, the imam appeared as a defense witness in the landmarks-conspiracy trial, held in a packed Manhattan courtroom heavily fortified against possible terror attacks. The imam testified that it had been an honor to host Sheik Abdel-Rahman at Masjid At-Taqwa, and described him as a “respected scholar” known for having memorized the Quran. “He is bold, as a strong preacher of Islam, so he is respected that way,” Imam Wahhaj testified.

The imam called Mr. Hampton-El “one of the most respected brothers” in his congregation. He also testified that he had met a third defendant, Siddig Ibrahim Siddig Ali, and that he had a favorable impression of a fourth, Ibrahim El-Gabrowny. All four were convicted and sentenced to prison terms.

In March 2001, the imam returned to the same court to testify as a religious expert at the trial of four Muslim extremists convicted in the bombing of two U.S. embassies in Africa. He testified that holy war could never justify such bombings.

In July of this year, the New York Daily News in an editorial described Imam Wahhaj as “an unindicted co-conspirator linked to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.” The imam appeared to relish responding to the attack. “I had dinner with Secretary of State Albright — after the list” of unindicted co-conspirators was circulated, he thundered in a sermon shortly after the editorial. “They know it’s bogus!” Ms. Albright declined to comment through a spokeswoman.

The government has never offered evidence linking him to any terrorism, the imam said. “How am I linked? Tell me?” he bellowed, as members of his congregation nodded in agreement. “They have to get me like they got Malcolm (X), like they got Martin Luther King, like they got everybody else — that’s what they do!”


https://www.nytimes.com/1991/06/16/nyre ... their.html

Security Guards Or Vigilantes?/A special report; In Brooklyn, Private Police as Violent as Their Enemy

By CHRIS HEDGES

A private police force, as heavily armed and sometimes as violent as the drug dealers it is hired to confront, is stalking the dealers in some of Brooklyn's poorest neighborhoods, according to residents, police officers and the guards themselves.

The force, licensed by the New York Secretary of State under the name SSI Patrol Services, provides security for privately owned apartment buildings where heavy drug dealing has gone on. Among them are the Noble Drew Ali Plaza at 37 New Lots Avenue in the East New York section and the Atlantic Towers, on the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Rockaway Avenue in East New York. SSI also has contracts at several smaller Brooklyn apartment buildings, nursing homes and at least one factory. Officers and Neighbors Approve

The company is hired by landlords to oust drug dealers when the police cannot. The cost is high -- more than $600,000 a year in one case -- but Government housing subsidies sometimes help cover it. The company's tools are the same ones employed by its adversaries: violence and intimidation. The Police Department says it opposes vigilante justice, but some officers on the beat and neighborhood residents are enthusiastic about the company's tactics.

A spokeswoman for Police Commissioner Lee P. Brown, Suzanne Trazoff, said the Commissioner "encourages people from the community to be the eyes and ears of the Police Department but not to do hands-on policing." Mr. Brown would not comment on the activities of SSI guards, Ms. Trazoff said. The state license does not give the company power to make arrests or to use unlicensed weapons.

Even beyond its unusual methods, the company is unconventional. It is owned by Herschel Weber, a Hasidic rabbi from the Williamsburg section who coexists uneasily with his employees, many of whom are Muslims. Some guards, especially those involved in the most violent battles against drug dealers, have criminal records and were involved in drugs before they underwent jailhouse conversions to Islam.
Continue reading the main story

The SSI guards cultivate a mystique of invincibility that can obscure the line between myth and reality; they boast that they own the streets and strike fear in drug lords. But however inflated their braggadocio may be, there is ample evidence -- from interviews, arrest records and eyewitness accounts of neighbors and police officers -- that the guards play rough, and that their methods have had results.

Community leaders say that one success story is at the Noble Drew Ali Plaza, a 385-unit complex of five buildings named for the founder of the Moorish Science Temple, a Muslim group. They say the guards have forced the drug dealers out and improved the lives of the residents there. The management, Linden Realty Associates, which hired the SSI guards about three years ago, subsequently invested heavily in the complex and filled buildings that were once half-empty and among the most dangerous in the city.

Mr. Weber, the head of SSI, said conventional security measures are ineffective in drug-ridden buildings.

"We couldn't control this when we went in in a nice manner, like any security company," he said. "It did not work." A Hebrew Name, And Muslim Guards

Mr. Weber's 12-year-old company is a shadowy presence, and the scope of its operations is hard to define. Mr. Weber said SSI stands for Sehmerier Security Inc. "Sehmerier," he said, is a phonetic spelling of the Hebrew word meaning "to watch."

He said he employs 2,000 people, including about 600 off-duty and retired police officers and 200 Muslims. But these numbers seem exaggerated. In the course of a month, a reporter saw about two dozen guards in and around the housing projects they patrol. Mr. Weber did not specify where his other employees come from.

Imam Siraj Wahhaj is the leader of the Masjid At-Taqwa, at 1266 Bedford Avenue, one place where SSI recruits Muslim guards. He estimated that 50 of his mosque's members work as guards, some for SSI. Many of the guards have had to use tough measures to stem drug dealing, he said.

"What we have done, because of unusual circumstances, is use unusual means," the imam said, referring to Muslims who do security work. "That means using force, standing up, putting our lives on the line. We are willing to fight, willing to die and willing to kill, although I want to stress that we only kill in self-defense."

At least one of Mr. Webers's contracts is large. Federal Housing and Urban Development officials say they authorized a rent level high enough to pay $655,200 a year to SSI for security at Noble Drew Ali Plaza alone. The Federal Government pays part of the rent for many of the residents.

...
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Re: New Mexico / Siraj Wahhaj

Postby Pele'sDaughter » Wed Aug 08, 2018 12:40 pm

https://www.yahoo.com/news/latest-lando ... 51806.html

[....]
The Taos County sheriff says the body of a child was found at the compound where investigators suspect a father took his son after an abduction in Georgia.

The remains have not been positively identified.
[....]
Don't believe anything they say.
And at the same time,
Don't believe that they say anything without a reason.
---Immanuel Kant
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Re: New Mexico / Siraj Wahhaj

Postby elfismiles » Wed Aug 08, 2018 2:59 pm

Documents: Man arrested at N.M. compound was training kids for school shooting (VIDEO)
By MORGAN LEE and MARY HUDETZ, Associated Press |
Posted: Wed 1:35 PM, Aug 08, 2018 |
Updated: Wed 1:49 PM, Aug 08, 2018

AMALIA, N.M. (AP) — The Latest on 11 children found living in a filthy, makeshift compound in New Mexico (all times local):
CNN VAN

12:30 p.m.

Prosecutors say in court documents that the father of a missing Georgia boy was training children at a New Mexico compound to commit school shootings.

The documents filed Wednesday say Siraj Ibn Wahhaj (see-DAHJ' IBN wah-HAJ') was conducting weapons training at the compound near the Colorado border where 11 hungry children were found in filthy conditions.

Prosecutors filed the documents while asking that Wahhaj be held without bail.

Wahhaj was arrested last week with four other adults. They are facing child abuse charges.

Authorities say the remains of a boy also were found on the compound but have not been positively identified by a medical examiners.
___

9:30 a.m.

New Mexico officials investigating a makeshift compound where 11 children were found hungry plan to ask a judge to hold the father of a missing boy without bail.

New Mexico 8th Judicial District Attorney Donald Gallegos said Tuesday that prosecutors are putting together evidence to ask a judge to hold Siraj Ibn Wahhaj (see-DAHJ' IBN wah-HAJ') without bond.

A warrant from Georgia seeks the extradition of Wahhaj to face a charge of abducting his son from that state last December.

He is scheduled to appear in a Taos County court on Wednesday. Wahhaj and four other adults also face felony child abuse charges after a raid by authorities found 11 hungry children living in filth.

The missing boy was not among the children found in that initial search but authorities say they found the remains of a child.

___

For months, neighbors worried about a squalid compound built along a remote New Mexico plain, saying they brought their concerns to authorities long before sheriff's officials first found 11 hungry children on the lot, and then the remains of a small boy.

Two men and three women also had been living at the compound, and were arrested following a raid Friday that came as officials searched for a missing Georgia boy with severe medical issues.

Medical examiners still must confirm whether the body found at the property in a second search of the compound on Monday is that of Abdul-ghani Wahhaj, who was 3 in December when police say his father took him from his mother in Jonesboro, Georgia.

The boy's father, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, was among those arrested in the compound raid that has since resulted in the series of startling revelations on the outskirts of Amalia, a tiny town near the Colorado state line marked by scattered homes and sagebrush. Authorities said they found the father armed with multiple firearms, including an assault rifle.

Siraj Ibn Wahhaj was scheduled to appear in court Wednesday on a warrant from Georgia that seeks his extradition to face a charge of abducting his son from that state last December. He had expressed wanting to perform an exorcism on his son, the warrant said.

The group arrived in Amalia in December, with enough money to buy groceries and construction supplies, according to Tyler Anderson, a 41-year-old auto mechanic who lives nearby.

He said Tuesday he helped the newcomers install solar panels after they arrived but eventually stopped visiting.

Anderson said he met both of the men in the group, but never the women, who authorities have said are the mothers of the 11 children, ages 1 to 15.

Anderson did not recall seeing the Georgia boy who was missing. But he said some of the smaller children from the compound turned up to play with children at neighboring properties after the group first arrived.

"We just figured they were doing what we were doing, getting a piece of land and getting off the grid," said Anderson, who moved to New Mexico from Seattle with his wife seven years ago.

As the months passed, however, they stopped seeing the smaller children playing in the area. They also stopped hearing guns fired off at a shooting range on the property, he said.

Jason Badger, who owned the property where the compound was built, said he and his wife had pressed authorities to remove the group after becoming concerned about the children. The group had built the compound on their acreage instead of a neighboring tract owned by Lucas Morton, one of the men arrested during the raid.

"I started to try and kick them off about three months ago and everything I tried to do kept getting knocked down," said Badger said.

A judge dismissed an eviction notice filed by Badger against Morton in June, court records said. The records did not provide further details on the judge's decision.

After the raid, Anderson went over and looked at the property for the first time in months.

"I was flabbergasted from what it had turned into from the last time I saw it," he said.

Authorities said the compound shielded by old tires, wooden pallets and an earthen wall studded with broken glass had been littered with "odorous trash."

The 11 children found living at the encampment — described as a small trailer embedded in the ground — had been without clean water and appeared to have not eaten in days, according to Taos County Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe.

At a news conference in Taos, Hogrefe described FBI surveillance efforts in recent months that included photographs of the compound and interviews. He said the images were shared with the mother of Abdul-ghani but she did not spot her son, and that the photographs never indicated the boy's father was at the compound.

"I had no probable cause to get a search warrant to go onto this property," the sheriff said.

He said FBI officials were invited to the news conference but declined to attend. An FBI spokesman did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

Hogrefe said the "breaking point" in seeking a search warrant came when Georgia authorities received a message that may have originated within the compound that children were starving inside.

It was not clear who sent the message or how it was communicated. Georgia detectives forwarded it to the Taos County Sheriff's Office.

Authorities returned to search the compound after interviews on Friday and Saturday led them to believe the boy might still be on the property.

"We discovered the remains yesterday on Abdul's fourth birthday," Hogrefe said, appearing to fight back tears.

Aleks Kostich, managing attorney in the Taos County public defender's office, said the office was gathering information and assigning attorneys to the defendants. He declined to comment on their behalf, saying the case was in its early stages.

However, he questioned the "legal sufficiency" of the criminal complaints filed against the men and women, saying they were vague.

"I'm not sure how much investigating has been done," he said. "I'm not sure how much law enforcement knows and how long they've known it for."

___

AP writers Kate Brumback in Jonesboro, Georgia, contributed to this report. Hudetz reported from Albuquerque.

http://www.kwch.com/content/news/Child- ... 52381.html
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Re: New Mexico / Siraj Wahhaj

Postby liminalOyster » Wed Aug 08, 2018 5:01 pm

Wombaticus Rex » Tue Aug 07, 2018 2:50 pm wrote:the halal equivalent of Hal Turner.


Or Marion Pettie.
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Re: New Mexico / Siraj Wahhaj

Postby Elvis » Wed Aug 08, 2018 9:31 pm

Weird details suggesting a deeper plot...

- Children being trained for school shootings (if true)

- FBI interested, surveilling, but no action taken

- key man is son of famous NYC imam

- a judge dismissed eviction efforts — eviction is usually straightforward; "everything I tried to do kept getting knocked down," said Badger.

- FBI officials were invited to the news conference but declined to attend


I'd say the public defender is in for a ride.
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Re: New Mexico / Siraj Wahhaj

Postby Sounder » Thu Aug 09, 2018 5:01 am

The blocking eviction bit is telling.

So, why is it that these anti-govt people are so often found out later to be tools for achieving govt. objectives?

Hint; It is easy peasy to weaponize absolutist ideals. And that is why anti-fa, jihadis and fascists are blood brothers.
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Re: New Mexico / Siraj Wahhaj

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Thu Aug 09, 2018 11:13 am

liminalOyster » Wed Aug 08, 2018 4:01 pm wrote:
Wombaticus Rex » Tue Aug 07, 2018 2:50 pm wrote:the halal equivalent of Hal Turner.


Or Marion Pettie.


The grandfather, not the kidnapper/gunman son. Unfortunate that they share the name like that, this will lead to a lot of noise / bad parsing over the weeks to come. A lot of players involved in this one already, plus Wahhaj Sr. is so connected the implications stretch back pretty far.

https://magazine.atavist.com/prince-of- ... y-thieves-

^^Wild ride, right there, too long to reproduce here and pretty tangential, besides.

Soon after, Robertson started hanging around Masjid At-Taqwa, a storefront mosque in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. Taqwa had been recently founded by a charismatic young imam named Siraj Wahhaj, another former Baptist, who preached hard work, personal responsibility, and muscular opposition to the violence and drug dealing overtaking the surrounding area. But Robertson remained restless as a high school student and repeatedly tangled with police. Soon after his 17th birthday, he enlisted in the Marines.

...

In 1988, while Robertson was still in the Marines, Siraj Wahhaj, the imam of Taqwa, worked with police to remove dealers from a dozen local crack dens. Congregants operated 24-hour drug patrols, armed with walkie-talkies, knives, and pistols. Masjid Muminin, a nearby mosque that was popular with ex-felons who had converted in prison, adopted these tactics, too. The mosques became a recruiting pipeline for New York’s booming private-security industry. Within a few days of returning home, Robertson visited Taqwa, where a member of the congregation recruited him to join SSI Patrol. The job was perfect for an ex-Marine pulsing with testosterone.

...

In the next two weeks, the gang robbed two more post offices and a bank, netting more than $39,000 in cash and multiple reams of stamps. They joked that they had “all the stamps.” The money allowed Robertson to pay bail for Craig Williams, a colleague from his SSI days who was in jail on a stolen-vehicle charge.

Robertson was eager to donate some of his earnings to the Taqwa mosque, but Siraj Wahhaj, knowing its provenance, refused to accept it. The imam told him to return the money. Robertson refused and went instead to Muminin. Robertson told me that mosque officials there not only accepted the gang’s zakat but asked for more: “They said, ‘We got plumbing problems. How come we got plumbing problems if you guys have so much money?’” He estimated that over the next few months, the gang gave roughly $30,000 to the mosque. (Muminin has since closed, and I was never able to reach former officials to confirm the story.)

...

Siraj Wahhaj, the imam of Taqwa, told me recently that he warned her father, Sulaiman El-Hadi, not to let his daughter marry Robertson. Everyone at Taqwa knew that Robertson was an armed robber who tried to make zakat with stolen funds. But El-Hadi gave his blessing anyway and hosted the walima, or Islamic marriage banquet, at his home.
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Re: New Mexico / Siraj Wahhaj

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Thu Aug 09, 2018 11:47 am

A clarification, perhaps, regarding the "Exorcism" angle
Via: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/20 ... tings.html

Four-year-old Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj went missing last December from Georgia after his father told the boy’s mother that the child was “possessed by the Devil.” An arrest warrant for the elder Wahhaj said he planned to perform an “exorcism” on the toddler, who suffers from severe medical issues, but the mother, Hakima Ramzi, told CNN that there was a translation issue in the courts and Wahhaj only wanted to “wanted to pray for Abdul-Ghani.”


Via: https://auburnpub.com/video/featured/co ... 2a294.html

A New Mexico couple told authorities months ago they thought a missing Georgia boy and his fugitive father were living in a filthy compound on their property.

But police did not carry out a search of the property until last week, Taos County Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe said, because they did not believe they had probable cause in the case.

That delay is facing scrutiny in the wake of Monday's discovery of a young boy's remains at the compound.

"They were dragging their feet. They were taking too long," said Tanya Badger, who with her husband, Jason, told authorities about the boy's suspected presence at the compound. "Even if they were trying to build a case or whatnot, a child's life is at stake."

...

The Badgers, whose land the compound was on, said they saw a boy they thought was Abdul-Ghani in January and February.

In April, they discovered the boy was listed as missing and his father a fugitive. They reported the sightings to state and local law enforcement, but it was months before police moved in, the couple said.

"We are just beyond frustrated that they took so long," Tanya Badger said.

...

However, the Badgers said that police did not do a thorough job searching the property. The couple said they went back over the weekend after they found out Abdul-Ghani wasn't among the 11 children discovered during the raid.

They said they were surprised to see the scene was not taped off and was still largely untouched. They found two guns, ammo, tactical vests and video cameras that police initially missed, Jason Badger said.

"When we first went up there, nothing was overturned," he said. "You could tell nobody had looked underneath that, nobody had looked underneath this."


Via: https://www.kob.com/new-mexico-news/com ... t/5019539/

Siraj Wahhaj, Hujrah Wahhaj, Subhannah Wahhaj, Lucas Morton and Jany Leveille were all arrested at the compound.

Siraj Wahhaj, Hujrah Wahhaj, and Subhannah Wahhaj are siblings.

Subhannah Wahhaj is said to be married to Lucas Morton.
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Re: New Mexico / Siraj Wahhaj

Postby Cordelia » Fri Aug 10, 2018 7:40 am

Friday . August 10, 2018

Brooklyn imam dismayed by family’s tragedy at New Mexico compound

AOS, N.M.: A prominent New York City Muslim cleric said on Thursday that he was baffled by events leading to his grandson’s presumed death and the arrest of his son and four other adult relatives on charges of abusing children at a compound in New Mexico.

Siraj WahHajj, a Brooklyn-based imam, spoke to reporters at his mosque, Masjid Taqwa, a day after his son, two daughters, a daughter-in-law and a son-in-law were charged with 11 felony counts of child abuse in New Mexico.

The son, Siraj Ibn WahHajj, 39, also was charged with custodial interference in the alleged abduction of his 3-year-old son, Abdul-Ghani WahHajj, last December from the Atlanta home of the child’s mother.

The search for the missing boy and his father ultimately led investigators to the ramshackle compound on the outskirts of Amalia, New Mexico, north of Taos near the Colorado border.

Eleven children ranging from 1 to 15 years of age were found ragged and starving at the compound last Friday after sheriff’s deputies raided it. They were placed in protective custody.

The imam, who was the first Muslim to offer a prayer before the US House of Representatives, said he is the biological grandfather of nine of the children in the case, including Abdul. Remains of a young boy believed to be those of Abdul were found at the compound on Monday.

The elder WahHajj said, without elaborating, that some of the children have said they saw Abdul alive as recently as three weeks ago, adding, “One of them said, ‘Yeah, we buried him over there.’“


His son, said by authorities to have been heavily armed when arrested, was taken into custody with his brother-in-law, Lucas Morton. His wife Jany Leveille and two sisters, Subhannah and Hujrah WahHajj, were detained and later arrested.

In court petitions seeking to hold them without bond, prosecutors accused them of training the children to use firearms to carry out school shootings, but no related charges have been filed.

The elder Siraj WahHajj said he has been cooperating with authorities in their investigation and that he had not had direct communication with his son since a search for him was launched after Abdul’s disappearance.

He said he did not know what his son and daughters were doing in New Mexico or what prompted them to go into seclusion, but he was anxious to get to the bottom of a situation he described as “bizarre” and “weird.”

“As far as my son and my daughters are concerned, I want to make sure they get good legal representation. We want to find out what happened,” he said. “Even if it’s against them. We stand in judgment. God stands in judgment against them, and we stand on the side of truth.”

The cleric recounted having a brief exchange with his daughter Subhannah at some point through a go-between on Facebook. Subhannah later reached out to someone in Atlanta saying, “’I need some food. We are starving.”


The imam said he instructed that intermediary to “find out where we should send the food.” He said once his daughter provided the location, “We gave it to the police. That’s why the police came in.”

His account dovetailed with a chronology given earlier in the week by Taos County Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe, who said he obtained a search warrant for the compound after police in Georgia got a plea about starvation from someone in the compound and shared it with his investigators.

The imam said his son had worked for a New York company providing security to corporate executives and celebrities and was licensed to carry firearms in 36 states. He described him as “high-strung” at times but not violent or “radical.”


http://www.arabnews.com/node/1353901/world


He said he did not know what his son and daughters were doing in New Mexico or what prompted them to go into seclusion, but he was anxious to get to the bottom of a situation he described as “bizarre” and “weird.”

Really.
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Re: New Mexico / Siraj Wahhaj

Postby elfismiles » Fri Aug 10, 2018 9:12 am

This video report mentions the NYC bombing connection:

The elder Wahhaj heads Masjid At-Taqwa mosque in Brooklyn, New York, which has attracted speakers over the years who have been described as radical.

The elder Wahhaj was named in the investigation of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing but was never charged.


CBS/AP August 8, 2018, 10:06 PM
Man arrested at New Mexico compound is son of imam with possible link to 1993 World Trade Center bombing (VIDEO)

The man arrested at a squalid New Mexico compound is the son of a controversial Brooklyn imam who was on a list of people who "may be alleged as co-conspirators" to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, according to court documents released by prosecutors Wednesday. Siraj Wahhaj, who shares a name with his son who was arrested Saturday, testified as a character witness for Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the notorious "blind sheikh" who was convicted in 1995 of plotting terror attacks in the U.S.

Authorities found 11 children and four adults living in "filthy" conditions at the compound Saturday in Amalia, New Mexico. Prosecutors also alleged in court documents that Wahhaj, 39, was teaching the children to commit school shootings. The documents claim Wahhaj was conducting weapons training with assault rifles at the compound with the children.

Man at filthy New Mexico compound was training kids to commit school shootings, prosecutors say

Taos County Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe previously said adults at the compound were "considered extremist of the Muslim belief." He did not elaborate, saying it was part of the investigation.
Compound Searched-Children Removed

This Friday, Aug. 3, 2018, photo released by Taos County Sheriff's Office shows Siraj Wahhaj.
Taos County Sheriff's Office via AP

The elder Wahhaj heads Masjid At-Taqwa mosque in Brooklyn, New York, which has attracted speakers over the years who have been described as radical.

The elder Wahhaj was named in the investigation of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing but was never charged.

Authorities were searching the compound in search of the younger Siraj Wahhaj's 4-year-old son, Abdul-ghani, who is severely disabled and disappeared from Georgia in December. He is accused of kidnapping the boy.

Police said Tuesday they had found human remains on a remote part of the compound, but officials are waiting for positive identification. Wahhaj and the other adults on the compound have been charged with child abuse.

Prosecutor Timothy Hasson filed the court documents while asking that Wahhaj be held without bail.

"He poses a great danger to the children found on the property as well as a threat to the community as a whole due to the presence of firearms and his intent to use these firearms in a violent and illegal manner," Hasson wrote.

A judge ordered all five adults be held without bond.

In a Georgia arrest warrant, authorities said Wahhaj had told his son's mother that he wanted to perform an exorcism on the child because he believed he was possessed by the devil. He later said he was taking the child to a park and didn't return.
Compound Searched-Children Removed

This Friday, August 3, 2018, image shows a rural compound during an unsuccessful search for a missing 3-year-old boy in Amalia, New Mexico.
Taos County Sheriff's Office via AP

The arrest warrant issued there says the missing boy has a condition caused by lack of oxygen and blood flow around the time of birth. He cannot walk and requires constant attention, his mother told police.

For months, neighbors worried about the squalid compound built along a remote New Mexico plain, saying they took their concerns to authorities long before sheriff's officials raided the facility described as a small camping trailer in the ground.

The search at the compound came amid a two-month investigation that included the FBI. Hogrefe said federal agents surveilled the area a few weeks ago but did not find probable cause to search the property.

That changed when Georgia detectives forwarded a message to the sheriff that he said initially had been sent to a third party, saying: "We are starving and need food and water."

Authorities found what Hogrefe called "the saddest living conditions and poverty" he has seen in 30 years in law enforcement. He said Wahhaj was armed with multiple firearms, including an assault rifle. But he was taken into custody without incident.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/siraj-wahh ... documents/

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Re: New Mexico / Siraj Wahhaj

Postby Wombaticus Rex » Tue Aug 14, 2018 9:17 am

This continues to smell remarkably weird even by "America in 2018" standards. Also, the exorcism angle, despite the protests of the mother, does not seem to be a "mistranslation." A new name in the mix - "Jany Leveille"

Via: https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/13/us/new-m ... index.html

The evidence was intended to paint a disturbing picture of a zealous family training for a violent mission against government institutions, New Mexico prosecutors said.

The family fled Georgia for a compound in New Mexico where they trained their children in firearms use, according to testimony. A child died at his father's hand during a religious ritual intended to expel religious demons from his body. Eleven more malnourished children were later found on the property.

The family believed that once the demons were gone, the boy would return as Jesus four months later and tell his family which institutions to get rid of, a witness said. Those who did not believe "their message" would be killed or detained "until they believed," a teenager on the compound said, according to a FBI agent.

But a lawyer for one of the five adults countered, saying the defendants were following religious rituals that might be viewed in a different light if they were white Christians instead of black Muslims.

After four hours of testimony on Monday, a judge ruled that the defendants were not shown to be a threat and allowed them unsecured bond.

"What I've heard here today is troubling, definitely. Troubling facts about numerous children in far from ideal circumstances and individuals who are living in a very unconventional way -- although if you have lived in northern New Mexico for any period of time you are aware that many people here live in unconventional ways," Judge Sarah Backus said.

Defendant Siraj Wahhaj and his relatives -- sisters Hujrah Wahhaj and Subhannah Wahhaj, his partner Jany Leveille, and brother-in-law Lucas Morten -- each face 11 counts of child abuse. They have pleaded not guilty.

Most troubling was evidence about the apparent death of 3-year-old Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj, Backus said. Remains of a young boy found on the compound are awaiting positive identification. But the judge said none of the evidence told her anything about the surviving children, who are in state custody away from the compound.

"The state alleges there was a big plan afoot but the state has not shown to my satisfaction by clear and convincing evidence what in fact that plan was," Backus said.

"The state wants me to make a leap, and it's a large leap. And that would be to hold people in jail without bond based on -- again -- troubling facts. But I didn't hear any choate plan that was being alleged by the state."

Lawyers for the defendants called the ruling a positive step for their clients in a case that could test the bounds of religious freedom in the justice system and the court of public opinion.

The defendants were taken into custody after an August 3 raid on their compound where 11 malnourished children were found. Early on, the local sheriff called the suspects "extremist of the Muslim belief." He later said that his statement was based on their appearance and he did not intend to imply violence.

The suspects' faith has been an undercurrent in the case ever since, one that came to the fore in Monday's hearing -- even though neither prosecutors nor witnesses explicitly referred to the defendants' Muslim faith.

"This was not a camping trip and this was not a simple homesteading, the kind that many people do in New Mexico," prosecutor Timothy Hasson said. "The evidence as a whole suggests that this family was on a mission. And it was a violent one, and it was a dangerous one."

But Siraj Wahhaj's lawyer said "no one would bat an eye" if the suspects were white Christians accused of shooting guns on their property or practicing their religion.

"If these were white people of a Christian faith who owned guns, that's not a big deal because there's a Second Amendment right to own firearms in this country. If these were white Christians, faith healing is of no consequence because we have freedom of religion in this country. But they look different and they worship differently from the rest of us," Thomas Clark said Monday.

"When black Muslims do it there seems to be something nefarious, something evil," he later said outside the courthouse.

Coverage of the case has focused largely on Siraj Wahhaj and his missing son, Abdul-Ghani, the boy whom prosecutors said was killed during the ritual and understandably so: the search for Abdul-Ghani and his father -- who is wanted in Georgia for his alleged abducted -- led authorities to the New Mexico compound. Despite being granted bond, he will remain in custody while he waits for authorities in Georgia to execute his fugitive warrant, Clark said.

A lawyer for Jany Leveille, the woman described as Siraj Wahhaj's "Muslim wife" in testimony Monday, said her reasons for being on the compound may not be quite what they seem.

"She believed in her religion and tried to follow the tenants of her religion," Kelly Golightley said. "They may have been running in fear of their lives ... She was a mom, she was taking care of her children. Maybe not in a way that we understand."

Prosecutors alleged the family came to New Mexico to prepare for Abdul-Ghani's return as Jesus. The family believed Leveille received messages from God through the angel Gabriel, FBI agent Travis Taylor testified.

One of those messages was for the family to go to New Mexico, where Morten had property, and to continue rituals that began in Georgia to expel demons from Abdul-Ghani's body.

The boy suffered from seizures, requiring constant care and medical attention, his mother, Hakima Ramzi, previously told CNN. After a trip to Saudi Arabia in October 2017, Siraj Wahhaj said he wanted to stop giving his son medication and perform rituals to "cast demonic spirits" out of his son's body, Ramzi told investigators, according to prosecutor John Lovelace.

Siraj Wahhaj is accused of abducting Abdul-Ghani's from his mother's home in Jonesboro, Georgia in November. A few weeks after his alleged abduction, he was in a car accident in Alabama with some of his children and Leveille. It's not clear if Abdul-Ghani was in the car.

Wahhaj told a trooper that the family was on their way to New Mexico to go camping, Lovelace said, but the trooper noted in his report that he saw no camping equipment in the overturned vehicle. He also told the officer that he was married to Leveille, though she would clarify to the officer that they were not legally married, Lovelace said.

Morten picked up the family in a rental truck and drove them and their belongings to New Mexico, including a weapons cache that included handguns, a bulletproof vest, several magazines, Lovelace said. But when Clayton County police questioned Morten in December, he said he didn't know where Wahhaj was. The truck and the weapons were eventually found at the compound.

At some point, Morten passed on a letter from the someone at the New Mexico compound to Wahhaj's brother inviting him to join them and "die as a martyr," Lovelace said. The letter instructed him to "leave whatever we told you to leave" and "take all your money out of the bank and bring your guns." The letter also told him not to alert their father.

The behavior suggested Wahhaj was trying to "cut ties in the Atlanta area" as he relocated to New Mexico, Lovelace said.

After the raid, FBI agent Travis Taylor testified that he interviewed two children from the compound, ages 13 and 15, who shared information about events before Abdul-Ghani's apparent death.

According to one of the children, the family arrived in New Mexico sometime in January, Taylor said. The rituals on Abdul-Ghani continued in New Mexico at Leveille's direction, the FBI agent said. According to one of the teens, Leveille believed that Abdul-Ghani was her baby and Ramzi had stolen him from her womb using black magic, Taylor said.

In the rituals, which went on for several days, Abdul-Ghani's father recited verses from the Quran and held his hand on the boy's forehead as he foamed from the mouth, Taylor said. During one of those rituals, according to the children, Abdul-Ghani passed out and his heart stopped beating, the agent testified.

He has passed on, Taylor said, but the family believed he had already died and that his family was inhabited by demons. They believed he would return four months later as Jesus and lead them on their mission, Taylor said.

His body was washed several times, wrapped in sheets and then buried on the compound, the agent testified. As his body deteriorated, he was moved to a tunnel beneath the compound, where two of the adults would wash his body every other day, according to Taylor.

But Siraj Wahhaj's lawyer suggested that such actions demonstrated reverence and respect, not abusive behavior.

"Touching a child and reading from the Quran -- that's somehow interpreted as insidious," Clark said.

Taos County Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe was part of the law enforcement team that executed the first search warrant at the compound on August 3.
He found the children and Siraj Wahhaj in a small camper-trailer partly buried on the property. Weapons were scattered "in plain view" in the trailer, he said. The children clutched boxes of ammunition and Wahhaj appeared to be setting aside an an AR-style rifle, he said.

The sheriff said a child in the trailer told an agent that Wahhaj had told them to "arm up" as law enforcement entered the property, but Leveille told them to comply. Three days later, based on information from the children, law enforcement returned to the compound and found the remains of a young boy in the tunnel, hidden behind guns what the sheriff called a bag of "stale clothing."

The sheriff said he also noted a gun range about 25 to 30 feet from the trailer. When pressed by Wahhaj's lawyer, the sheriff conceded that there was no prohibition against teaching a teenager to use firearms. But there was nothing "prudent" about a firing range so close to living quarters, he said. "I actually find that reckless."
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