Australian FBI suspect admits to role with Islamic State after his capture in Syria
Mohamed Zuhbi, 29, was captured by a pro-Turkish militia in June last year and handed over to Turkish authorities.
He has since been convicted in a court there and is expected to be deported to Australia soon.
Zuhbi was one of the most prominent among Australia’s Islamic State supporters and was close to many of the Australian men who went to fight and die in Syria and Iraq with the declared terrorist group.
Until now there has been no suggestion that Zuhbi actually joined or fought for Islamic State.
However, the ABC has obtained Turkish court documents which state the Australian confessed that he had travelled to the group’s de-facto Syrian capital, Raqqa, in 2015, to join, and underwent weeks of religious and military training.
He told prosecutors he was then assigned a role in an Islamic State bureaucracy connected to travel and communication and also worked as an English translator for the group.
When Raqqa fell to a Kurdish offensive in mid-2017 he used smugglers to flee to Syria’s north-west.
He then lived in that area for two years — even opening a childcare centre with a male relative of a local woman he married — before being captured at a militia checkpoint, the Turkish documents state.
He was sent to Turkey and ultimately sentenced to more than seven years for joining Islamic State and related crimes, the documents states.
The court then gave him a series of reductions because of “assistance provided” that saw his final sentence reduced to about a-year-and-a-half.
The Turkish documents are authentic and base themselves on what they say is Zuhbi’s own confession.
However, the Turkish judicial system has become increasingly controlled by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s authoritarian government and convictions and confessions there would likely not meet the levels of evidence required in the Australian judicial system.
His arrest and expected return to Australia is the end of a four-year manhunt by authorities for the Australian citizen but may also create a new legal headache for the Federal Government.
The US has explicitly stated it expects Zuhbi to be extradited to America for trial there, with prosecutors in Houston arguing that because Zuhbi was engaged in an alleged conspiracy with US citizens they have jurisdiction.
However, Zuhbi is an Australian citizen and given his apparent confession in Turkey, the Australian Government may wish to first prosecute him here for his ISIS membership.
He has also been accused in the media of helping Australians cross into Syria and may face charges related to those Australian allegations when he returns.
The Australian Government declined to respond to questions by the ABC about whether Zuhbi would face Australian courts or if Canberra would allow the Americans to prosecute him.
In 2015, the FBI charged Asher Abid Khan, from Houston, with conspiring to provide material support to Islamic State and to kill people overseas. The charges related to an alleged 2014 plan hatched by him and Garcia to travel to Syria to join the group.
In material filed with the US District Court between 2015 and this year, prosecutors outlined their allegations, as described below.
A key element was that Khan and Garcia had an “Unnamed Co-Conspirator” — identified only as “CC-1” — who played a central role in facilitating their plan to join Islamic State.
Prosecutors later identified CC-1 as Zuhbi. In March 2016, they announced they had also charged him with providing material support to Islamic State and conspiring to kill people overseas.
“[Zuhbi] is a foreign national, believed to reside in Turkey, who facilitates the travel to Syria of foreign fighters seeking to join [Islamic State],” a prosecution document states.
Asher Abid Khan was raised in Houston but moved to Sydney in October 2013 after graduating from high school.
In January 2014, while still in Sydney, he used Facebook to reach out to Zuhbi, who by that point was living in Turkey and Syria.
“I wanna join ISIS can you help?” Khan said, according to court documents.
Zuhbi told Khan he could help him if he flew to Istanbul, and then travelled to the Turkish border city of Antakya, where he would be waiting for him.
The next month Khan and Garcia flew to Istanbul but Khan’s family managed to convince him to return to the US.
Garcia, however, was undeterred — he travelled to Antakya and met with Zuhbi.
Later that day he sent a message to Khan saying he had “been delivered :)” and that he was still with “Mohammad,” whom prosecution documents state was Zuhbi.
Later that year Garcia message Khan to say he had finally made it to “ISIS.”
In December, a message was posted on Facebook announcing Garcia had died in the fighting.
Khan was arrested by the FBI several months later and then, in March 2016, the US issued a warrant for Zuhbi’s arrest.
“By providing additional personnel to serve as fighters in [Islamic State]’s ranks, Zuhbi directly contributed to and supported all aspects of the organisation’s mission, thereby engaging in criminal activity that harmed the interests of the United States and threatened its security,” prosecutors stated in a document filed to the court in April 2016.
The US Department of Justice and the FBI both declined to discuss Zuhbi’s case.
Bara Zuhbi says his son states the US charges are “false and exaggerated.”
“[Mohamed said to me], ‘This is all wrong. It’s all false. I did speak to one person, a Pakistani or something … And it was about him wanting to cross.
“He didn’t give me details, but he said this was one person. [Zuhbi said], ‘I wasn’t in the business of greeting people’.”
If Zuhbi returns to Australia, he will be the second Australian returned home from the Middle East, following a decision by the Turkish Government late last year to begin deporting almost 1,000 people they accuse of being Islamic State members or associates, and their relatives.
Source: ABC
