Chilling video shows terror convict detailing his plans to kill 10,000
Chilling video shows the moment California man who pleaded guilty to terror charges tells undercover FBI agent of his plans to kill 10,000 with bombs, arson and poison
- Amer Alhaggagi, 23, of Oakland, pleaded guilty to terror charges in July
- Authorities say he discussed plans to plant bombs, set arson fires and distribute rat poison as cocaine in night clubs in Northern California in an online chatroom
- In July 2016 he began discussing plans to plant bombs and commit arson in the name of ISIS with an undercover FBI operative in an online chatroom
- The operative filmed their meeting about a week after they got into contact
- In the video, Alhaggagi says: ‘I want to make it to the point where every American here, like, thinks twice or three times before he leaves his home’
- A sentencing hearing was held Monday as a district judge sought to determine whether Alhaggagi was serious about carrying out his plans
- The hearing has been scheduled to resume on January 8
Amer Alhaggagi, 23, an Oakland man who pleaded guilty to terror charges in July, was caught on video telling an undercover FBI agent about his plans to kill 10,000 people in the name of ISIS by committing arson and detonating bombs in Northern California. The video was submitted by state prosecutors to be considered in Alhaggagi’s sentencing hearing, which was initially held Monday and will continue January 8
Chilling video in which a California man who pleaded guilty to terror charges tells an undercover FBI agent of his plans to kill 10,000 people in the Bay Area through a series of plots has been released ahead of his sentencing.
A sentencing hearing was held Monday in San Francisco as a US district judge sought to determine whether Amer Alhaggagi, 23, was serious when he discussed plans to plant bombs, set arson fires and distribute rat poison as cocaine in night clubs in Northern California.
Alhaggagi, of Oakland, pleaded guilty in July to attempting to give material aid to a terrorist organization by setting up social media accounts to supporters of the Islamic State, known as ISIL and ISIS.
The defendant turned up on the FBI’s radar two years earlier when he allegedly began discussing obtaining weapons and joining the Islamic State, known as ISIS or ISIL, in an encrypted online chat room on July 19, 2016.
An FBI source who was lurking in the chatroom contacted Alhaggagi posing as a former al-Qaida operative in Afghanistan.
Over the next week, the pair engaged in an encrypted conversation during which the defendant disclosed his ‘mad crazy plans’ to wreak havoc on the Bay Area, according to a sentencing memorandum from the prosecution obtained by KQED.
They met in person on July 29 and the undercover FBI agent recorded their conversation in his car.
In the video, Alhaggagi says that he’s been instructed by the Islamic State operatives to carry out an attack in the Bay Area.
‘I’ve always wanted to do something here,’ he tells the agent.
‘I want to make it to the point where every American here, like, thinks twice or three times before he leaves his home.
‘That’s the goal. … All the burning, the explosives, the poison, all of that adds up to some conclusion, you know?’
Alhaggagi turned up on the FBI’s radar in July 2016 when he allegedly began discussing obtaining weapons and joining the Islamic State in an encrypted online chat room. An FBI informant who was lurking in the chatroom contacted Alhaggagi posing as a former al-Qaida operative in Afghanistan. They met in person on July 29 and the undercover agent recorded their conversation in his car (pictured)
In the video, Alhaggagi says that he’s been instructed by the Islamic State operatives to carry out an attack in the Bay Area. ‘I’ve always wanted to do something here,’ he tells the agent. ‘I want to make it to the point where every American here, like, thinks twice or three times before he leaves his home. That’s the goal. … All the burning, the explosives, the poison, all of that adds up to some conclusion, you know?’
During Alhaggagi’s trial, prosecutors painted the 23-year-old as a dangerous criminal whose wanted to ‘redefine terror’ and promised that if he succeeded, the ‘whole Bay Area [was] gonna be in flames’.
Meanwhile, the defense has argued that Alhaggagi is nothing more than an internet troll who had no intention of following through with the plots he described.
‘The government spins an elaborate theory to explain why a supposed terrorist never took a single step to carry out any of his plots,’ the defense wrote in its sentencing memorandum.
‘The government posits that Mr. Alhaggagi, an untrained 21 year old with the mentality of a teenager, is a criminal mastermind whose refusal to act is even that he is a terrorist.’
US District Judge Charles Breyer called the case ‘serious’ on Monday before he continued the sentencing hearing to January 8.
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Marc Sageman, a former CIA employee who studies terror networks, testified in court Monday that Alhaggagi does not have the attributes of an Islamic extremist. Sageman, who evaluated Alhaggagi for the defense, described the defendant as a ‘fabulist’ who had no real intention of carrying out the attacks he described online
‘I don’t think that I’ve had a sentencing as dramatic in the sense of what was done, what was said and what a potential sentence should be,’ Breyer said.
The state has asked that Alhaggagi be sentenced to 33 years in prison, while his defense is seeking a sentence of four years.
Alhaggagi sat in a red jail jumpsuit at the defense table during the hearing Monday, playing with his ponytail at times.
Marc Sageman, a former CIA employee who studies terror networks, testified that Alhaggagi does not have the attributes of an Islamic extremist despite the wild claims he had made online.
‘He’s a fabulist. He spins tales,’ said Sageman, who evaluated Alhaggagi for the defense.
‘He wants to show that he’s a mean guy, but he’s really a coward. He really doesn’t do anything.’
Sageman, a forensic psychiatrist and counterterrorism consultant, said he has conducted 50 interviews of terrorists. He said Alhaggagi was not that religious and didn’t dress like an Islamic extremist or express anger with the US like many do.
Alhaggagi told an undercover agent about plans to set fire to the Berkeley hills, poison a large number of people with strychnine and set off multiple explosions using backpacks, according to Sageman.
He told Sageman he lied to the agent and only realized what he had gotten into when the agent took him to a storage facility weeks later to show him barrels of what was supposed to be an explosive agent, Sageman said.
A summary of the terror plots Alhaggagi allegedly said he wanted to carry out is listed above in an excerpt from the prosecution’s sentencing memorandum
Excerpts of Alhaggagi’s conversations in the chatroom are detailed in the prosecution’s filings, revealing his plans to ‘get 10,000 pppl [sic]’ by, among other things, setting fire to the Berkeley hills and detonating a bomb in a gay club.
‘[Y]ou kknow [sic] what they say, everyone is a gangster untile [sic] it’s time to do gangster shit [emojis],” Alhaggagi said in the chatroom.
‘I’m gonna case [sic] millions of dollars worth of damages and inshallah [God Willing] 100’s of bodies.’
Alhaggagi ended his consistent communication with the undercover agent after August 14, 2016.
The FBI kept the suspect under 24-hour surveillance for the following months but he was never found to have taken significant steps to carry out his plans.
Alhaggagi was arrested in late November under suspicion of identity theft charges stemming from his practice of skimming credit card information from customers at the mobile phone store where he worked. He allegedly used the cards to buy several thousand dollars worth of clothes.
After his arrest, investigators searched Alhaggagi’s phones and other devices and discovered he had been communicating with a 17-year-old in Iraq who was arrested in late 2017 and confessed to facilitating online propaganda for the ISIS.
In Alhaggagi’s possession they found an electronic copy of a pro-ISIS magazine, an ISIS bomb-making manual that he accessed three days before his arrest and a statement written in Arabic in which he outlined some of the plans he’d discussed with the FBI agent.
They also found a video in which Alhaggagi can allegedly be heard speaking Arabic over footage of a burning car as he says he caused the fire in the name of ISIS, prosecutors say.
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