ISIS trial: Closing arguments start Tuesday

MINNEAPOLIS (KMSP) - Closing arguments set to begin Tuesday morning in the federal terror trial of three Minnesota men accused of trying to join ISIS.

It’s the last chance to convince jurors that they either plotted and tried to go to Syria or that they were pawns of radical muslims and victims of powerful propaganda.

For 15 days they've sat in court in a line with their attorneys down one long table - Guled Omar, Abdirahman Daud and Mohamed Farah.

Among the two dozen witnesses are three former friends.

Abdillahhi Yusuf, who pled guilty, described being stopped at the Twin Cities airport, how he'd used his student loan money for a ticket, his instructions to go to the Blue Mosque in Istanbul for pick-up and his intention to fight with ISIS with "guns, rocket launchers, anything I was trained to use."

Abdirizak Warsame, who also pled guilty, described the group’s constant talking and plotting to join ISIS, the pull they felt it was the right thing to do.

"We believed if we were to die fighting in jihad in the end we would receive martyrdom and that's considered high rank among believers," he said.

The most contentious witness was Abdirahman Bashiir, the FBI's confidential informant, whose hours of secret recordings highlighted those beliefs and the constant talk.

But his testimony brings the accusations of entrapment - instructed by the FBI to push two of the defendants to go with him to San Diego and be arrested after buying fake passports from an undercover agent.

The defense's sole witness, defendant Guled Omar, was one of those arrested in San Diego. He explained to jurors he never intended to join ISIS and that it was all talk.
The violent propaganda videos they watched, he saw as entertainment, not reality.

But he felt pushed to flee the country, scared from the increasing FBI pressure through false incrimination by Yusuf.

"All you guys are going down too," he testified he was told. "They know everything."

"He's telling us we're all going to get arrested along with him. We're all getting followed by all these FBI cars. We're all paranoid."

Closing arguments are set to start at 9 a.m. on Tuesday and are scheduled for two days. The judge wants to make sure the jury has time to absorb it all.