Jamaican Muslim el-Faisal convicted in US on terrorist charges

The United States of America has convicted Jamaica’s Abdullah el-Faisal, a public supporter of the Islamic State or ISIS

supporting terrorism, attempting to support terrorism, and conspiracy, were among the charges El-Faisal was slapped with in New York recently

El-Faisal was extradited from Jamaica to the US back in August 2020 after being previously imprisoned or banned from entering a number of countries for promoting an extreme form of Islam that advocated killing nonbelievers.

“During the New York trial over two months in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, prosecutors portrayed el-Faisal as a jihadist who had supported ISIS between 2014 and 2017 by spreading its propaganda. They added that Faisal had attempted to support ISIS through one specific matchmaking effort, conspiring with a young woman from New York, who sought his assistance to enter ISIS-controlled territory and to marry one of its fighters,” according to reports from Loop news.

In fact, the news outlet said “the woman was actually an undercover member of the New York Police Department’s clandestine Intelligence Bureau. She was one of three investigators, who used fake names while communicating with Faisal from Manhattan”.

El-Faisal was reportedly the first person to go to trial under New York State laws adopted a week after the 2001 destruction of the World Trade Centre in Manhattan.